Unexpected Connections
by William de Worde
Summary: Nothing is true, everything is permitted. It was a routine assignment for the Assassins. Get in, retrieve the field agent, and get the hell out. It was just too bad that they didn't account for her overprotective, superpowered older brother. No slash, no OCs.
1. Prologue

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **Alex Mercer gets the first hints that something is not quite _right._

* * *

Manhattan. One of the five boroughs of New York City, it is simultaneously the smallest and the most populated area of the city. Home to over one and half million people, the island was the cultural and economic center of New York City. Crowded with looming skyscapers and bustling with humanity, it certainly earned its reputation as _the _quintessential city among both its own residents and those in nearby areas.

Until Penn Station.

It came out of the blue. One day, Manhattan Island was normal- thousands of people of every race, age, and gender, milling around the city and going through daily life. The next, the streets were empty of all except the most foolhardy of civilians and the military forces that had taken over the island. Now, it seemed like the set of a very high budget movie, lifeless and quiet.

A public announcement was made; a bioterrorist had struck Penn Station, releasing a deadly virus to the island. No worries, the black suited bureaucrat had promised, the situation was well under control and the virus will be contained within the week, if not days. The culprit had already been taken care of, so there was no worry of further attacks.

All of the above were disproved within the first few days of the quarantine, as soon as the first sighting of a dangerous, hoodie wearing individual had been reported. Then came reports of missing people- hundreds of them, mostly the rare person who decided to risk the numerous government warnings. The next day, the same faceless bureaucrat had spoken to the citizens of Manhattan Island with a false smile, reassuring them as to the military's control of the matter and warning them not to venture outside.

As an afterthought, the man added that the hoodie wearing individual was involved with the Penn Station attack and all sightings of him should be reported to the nearest military officer. Individuals should not confront the man directly- he was a very dangerous suspect.

And that was that. A simple virus, whose cure is being developed at the very moment by the nation's foremost scientists, had been set loose on Manhattan Island. Nothing that out of the ordinary. And if anyone reported sightings of the suspect doing impossible things- running up buildings for one- or of hulking, organic looking creatures that had appeared in the most affected areas of the island- well, that was just _silly_. Such reports went missing before they got to anyone important in the command.

But even the American government had no control over the World Wide Web. Blurry phone camera footage of such impossible things were everywhere on conspiracy theorist websites- more legitimate sites were quickly taken down through any means possible. The denizens of those sites- the same ones who claimed that the members of the government who wore rather gaudy red crosses were members of a secret society not unlike the Masons- declared that the United States had developed a secret weapon that got out of control.

Unsurprising to the average person, they weren't right. But they weren't wrong either.

If anyone had been watching from the window of an apartment in one of the deserted areas of Manhattan Island, they would have seen an interesting sight- a leather clad figure being chased by a squad of darkly clad goons, the former moving at frankly _impossible_ speeds, outpacing even the fastest Olympic runner with ease.

His name is Alex Mercer, and he has no idea who he is. All he knew was that he had something to do with whatever had happened to the city, and everyone remotely affiliated with the military was gunning for him. What he _wanted_ to know, was _why_. But that was easier said than done, especially with the goddamn _Blackwatch_ coming after him day and night.

"_Damn._" He growled upon catching sight of those iconic black uniforms and gas masks rounding the corner, faceless and relentless. Why couldn't those assholes just give up for once? It would save him the trouble- and them their lives. But no- it was as if they were blind to his slaughter of their colleagues.

Normal people haven't been much of a threat since Alex had found himself lying in the morgue with a rare strain of the current infection and superhuman strength, just a couple of days ago. For the most part, Blackwatch, despite being the so called 'elite of the elite' of the deployed military forces, hadn't been much of an exception. Their armor and protective masks didn't do much against his razor sharp claws and blade, much less his own… special method for dealing with enemies.

Well. That is, until about two days ago. Before, all they were capable of doing against the bioweapon was to shoot wildly, sending mildly irritating but ultimately harmless bullets in his direction. Blackwatch was annoying, but that was it.

Now? They were dangerous.

Someone- or something- with possession of some very detailed intel on the male Runner had given that information over to Blackwatch. There was no way that the military organization could wise up so quickly without outside help.

Now, all soldiers were equipped with special weapons specifically made to exploit his weaknesses, with bullets coated with a special form of what the grunts called 'Bloodtox'. Even more frustrating, the high-ranking members of both Gentek and Blackwatch- the very people from whom Alex sought information- were injected with some substance that made it impossible for them to be consumed.

He had learned of the latter the hard way. Mercer had tried to consume one of the military commanders to get the codes for the base, only to spend the next fifteen minutes retching and vomiting up all remainders of the substance, losing previous biomass in the process and gaining nothing more than a stomachache.

Turns out, Blackwatch's mystery benefactors were none too keen on having a homicidal, bloodthirsty bioweapon discover their secrets. They had designed something to counter Alex's most used method of obtaining them. Now, most of Mercer's targets- the ones most likely to have information- could not be consumed, putting a huge dent in his sole plan for information gathering- find and consume.

If he could only get his hands on those bastards- not only have they greatly interfered with his goals, they knew things about him that _he_ didn't. There was a very high possibility that they played a great part in whatever had happened to him that made him the way he was now, meaning that they were the ones the virus needed to go after. Problem is, he had no idea who- and what- they were.

At least, the people giving out the injections didn't give a shit about the common Blackwatch grunts who _didn't_ know their secrets, so Alex could still get a meal without eating civilians. Not that he cared much about that- biomass was biomass, whether it was a heavily armed soldier or a single mother.

But Dana cared, and say what you will about Alex Mercer the psychopathic infected killer, but he did love his sister. It _hurt_, in a way he had never felt before, when she looked at him with horrified eyes after he let it slip just _what_ he ate.

They talked – he wasn't 'forgiven', because though he wasn't sure how normal people dealt with their brother eating people, but completely ignoring the fact probably wasn't one of them- but Dana had made him promise to only go after people who went after him first. How could he say no to his sister?

It also helped that he really didn't want what made up his 'conscience'- a mix of screams and yells of the dozens of people he had consumed in the days after the outbreak- to affect him more than it has already. Hearing the death gurgles of his victims all day wasn't nearly as enjoyable as he would have thought.

All this thought about consuming, it reminded him that he hadn't eaten for a day. He didn't have a stomach- or at least, he doesn't think he does- but he feels like having some Blackwatch soldiers right now. And luckily for him, there was a narrow alley a few dozen feet in front of him where he could get a meal.

Blackwatch's guns weren't as effective in close combat, making his fight against the grunts like shooting fish in a barrel. He ducked inside and smirked as the Blackwatch grunts followed him in witlessly. They might have gotten an upgrade in equipment, but intellectually, they were exactly the same.

Not that he was complaining. He wasn't one to turn away free food, after all.

There was nothing but shadows in the alley when the soldiers entered. They pointed their guns threatenly at suspicious spots in the alley, but when nothing jumped out of them after a few minutes, the commander sighed and pulled out a black communicator.

"Squad 2460, reporting in. We saw ZEUS run into an alley, but it got a- _grk-_"

The rest of his words were caught off with a gurgle of blood as the distinct shape of the three 'fingers' of ZEUS's claws protruded from his abdomen. His eyes rolled back into his head and he would have fallen onto the concrete of the alley if not for the deadly claws holding him up.

"Boo." Mercer deadpanned, flicking the body away with a swift movement of his appendage. The man was dead already, and why settle for that when he could have something much fresher? A psychotic smirk appeared on his face. He _missed_ this.

The Blackwatch grunts shot at him wildly, much of the shots going wild and _ping_ing off of alley walls. Alex dodged the remaining bullets with ease and jumped, landing in the midst of the Blackwatch, impaling a soldier near him without a second thought.

Several of the men had been struck by friendly fire and were rendered helpless, clutching frantically at the blossoming dark stains on their uniforms. The black did hide the blood quite a bit, Mercer noted dispassionately.

But his good mood evaporated when he felt a few sudden bursts of red hot pain in his lower torso and left leg.

"Shit!" That's what he got for thinking during a fucking battle.

The new bullets Blackwatch was using really were a huge pain in the ass. According to a low ranking Gentek scientist he had consumed, Bloodtox was originally a gas of some sort before the benefactors redesigned them for up-close usage. The stuff hurt like hell, and the wounds caused by them took longer to heal than those caused by regular bullets.

Enraged, the bioweapon stabbed the gunman with sharp biomass claws, only to be shot by the surrounding soldier.

Hmph. Maybe the claws weren't the best choice against Bloodtox bullets. Alex straightened his back, morphing his left claw into a thick bulletproof shield, while the other reformed into a huge jagged blade, easily the size of his whole body.

"_Now_," He said, "It's _my_ turn."

Alex tore into a cowering soldier, reveling in the hot spray of blood before letting loose his tendrils, consuming the man and repairing the damage he had taken from the previous hail of bullets. Without stopping, the male Runner smashed another of his prey into the brick wall with his massive shield, glorifying in the gruesome crunch of bones being crushed.

There were still half a dozen Blackwatch peons standing near the entrance of the alleyway, pointing their guns at him with shaking hands. Alex's enhanced sense of smell told him that at least one of the men had pissed themselves out of fear.

Pitiful. He might as well put them out of their misery.

Ignoring the hail of Bloodtox bullets that slammed into his body- and strangely, they didn't seem to hurt as much as that first time, maybe he was gaining immunity? –the hooded man leapt at his attackers, an inhumanly wide smile on his face.

It was over in a matter of minutes.

Glancing at the blood and viscera that covered the alley, the bioweapon felt a sense of deep satisfaction. The killing and consuming felt second nature to him, and who was he to deny something that came natural to him?

But just as quickly, a wave of horror and self-disgust washed over him.

Was he even human, doing shit like this on a daily basis? Sure, the bastards probably were the ones who made him the way he was now, but how many of them had wives, children, and families waiting for them at home? What would _Dana_ say if she knew what he did? Sure, he needed to _eat_, but he didn't _need_ to butcher them like this.

The bioweapon had just changed his shield and blade back into bloodstained human hands when a glimmer caught his attention. Alex strode over briskly, seeing that it came from a piece of jewelry on the neck of one of the bodies. Nothing out of the normal. For band of secret soldiers, Blackwatch did have a penchant for putting shiny pieces of metal and minerals on their persons.

Wait. He had seen this particular design before. Snapping the necklace string with ease, the Infected brought the object closer to his eyes.

It was a red cross. According to the memories of a historian he had consumed a couple of days earlier; the cross was a symbol of the Templars, an old West Christian faction dating back from the Crusades. Alex remembered seeing the symbol on the clothing of various high-ranking Gentek and Blackwatch employees, but had thought nothing of it.

Maybe he should have.

Was there a connection between all those people? Perhaps there was some strange history fad going around…?

Wait.

The body of the deceased cross wearer was already cold, but Alex let loose his biomass tendrils and forced himself to take an experimental 'taste'. He immediately recoiled in disgust. He now recognized the man- he was the commander he had killed at first. It was a good thing he hadn't tried to consume him. If he had, he could have been left weakened for the rest of the battle.

The man had been injected with the anti-Blacklight liquid… just like all the others he had seen who also wore the strange cross.

Alex stood up.

The Templar cross must be denoting membership in some kind of… cult, or something like it, he thought. But whatever that cult is, its members knew enough of the secrets of Blackwatch's mystery benefactor that they (it?) could not afford to have their knowledge known to Alex. Perhaps, some of them may even be one of said benefactors. But seeing how he couldn't consume them and get the intel that way, he was going to have to gather information from them- the normal way.

He just had to make sure he wouldn't accidentally kill his captives in the process.

Someone had probably reported the screams coming from the alley by now, and Alex really wasn't in the mood to get in another fight. He needed Dana to find information on these 'Templars' for him, but he could never bring himself to wake her up after she fell asleep at the computer. That meant he had to get back before it got too late.

As Mercer bounded up the fire escapes and leapt from roof to roof on his way to Dana's apartment, he realized a nagging feeling that he had felt ever since he saw the cross. It was as if… the cross was related to his life, before the lockdown, before the outbreak. And… he remembered something else. It wasn't much, just a word, though Mercer didn't have any context for it; it just felt familiar and somehow related to these 'Templars', like the two were in the same metaphorical folder in the sorting cabinet of his mind.

Assassins.

Assassins and Templars went together in his brain like bread and butter, but he had no idea about the actual connection between the two. Were they opponents? Allies? Was one some subdivision of the other? He pushed the thoughts out of his mind. It wasn't as if he could do anything about it right now, but Mercer was going to need Dana to research a lot of things for him tonight.

Assassins and Templars. Mercer didn't know much of them, but the latter was definitely involved with whatever had happened to him. But if both of them were involved… well, there wasn't a difficult decision to make. He'd just have to deal with them like he had with all the others.

* * *

**A/N: As this is a Prototype/Assassin's Creed crossover that will have impacts on the events of both worlds, there have been slight changes in the sequence of events for both games. For one, the timelines of both have been synced to the year 2012. The other, as Prototype fans have probably noticed, is that a certain confrontation between the Mercers occurred earlier in this particular fic. This is not without purpose and will be further elaborated on in later chapters. There will probably be discrepancies regarding Alex's abilities and when he actually gains them in the game, which are accidental. Please tell me if you spy them, though I'll let the current ones go (i.e. claws and blade).**

**Hope you enjoyed this prologue. As usual, reviews are greatly appreciated.**

**-2.7.2013**


	2. Chapter 1: Discoveries

**Rating: **K+

**Summary: **Meet the Assassins.

* * *

Desmond never thought he would miss getting chased by angry guards on the rooftops of Renaissance era Italy.

He had spent the early years of his life in what he called the Farm, a small compound near Rapid City, with his dad. In his time there, he was constantly told about the 'Assassins' and the 'Templars', the latter of which was supposedly some worldwide secret organization that had members in every government on the planet.

Kid Desmond thought it was complete bullshit. On his sixteenth birthday, he had escaped from the crazy nomadic conspiracy theorists and became a bartender in the Big Apple, at a place called Bad Weather. He was careful- always using cash, never using his real name.

But the Templars were real, and they came after him. He got caught because of a damn motorcycle. Desmond woke up in an Abstergo facility and was forced to use something called the Animus- forced to relive memories of his ancestors that were somehow encoded into his DNA. It sounded crazy- it still does- but he _lived _it.

First was Altair, a legendary Assassin during the Crusades. Then, after his escape from Abstergo with the help of Lucy Stillman, he had lived the life Ezio, who entered the ranks of the Assassins after the murders of his father and brothers.

He had only been under for days, but he had lived years in the past. The life of an Assassin- complete with danger, suicidal leaps of faith, and unsurprisingly, assassinations- he _missed_ it. It was then that he realized that Desmond Miles was a pretty fucked up person. Adrenaline junkie, sure, but what kind of person enjoyed killing?

But months of being trapped in mere memories had left their mark. The Bleeding Effect was something all too real to him.

The Bleeding Effect was an ever-present specter that haunted his daily life. Desmond had seen those symbols and words that Subject 16- the poor bastard- had painted on Abstergo walls with his own blood. 16 had gone through all those things he did. Unfortunately for him, he had gone completely and utterly insane in the process, culminating in his gory suicide.

Desmond did not want to end up that way. But right now, it didn't seem like he had a choice to stop using the Animus. In the last memory he had relived, there was a… woman, an anachronistically holographic woman who had been part of some pre-human society on Earth.

Minerva.

She had said something about the solar flares that had destroyed her civilization, and how saving the world rested on the Assassin's shoulders. The whole thing sounded like a bad science fiction novel he had read when he had first ran away from the Farm, but it was true. Trite as it sounds, it seemed like the world was going to end in 2012.

But according to Lucy, there should be something Desmond could use in Ezio's memories to prevent the apocalypse. So, he wasn't really in a position to refuse. If he didn't go back in, it could mean the end of the world. It was his sanity or the world- he would be one selfish bastard to choose the former.

Right now, however, the modern Assassins were settling into the wooden cabin that had become their hideout after the initial warehouse had been discovered. Shaun was flipping through his dusty old tomes, Lucy getting in contact with the Assassin headquarters, and Rebecca was typing quickly on the keyboard, checking the news for information.

The click-clacking of the keys stopped. "Oh, _shit_." Rebecca said.

"I take it that you found something?" Lucy asked, a single blonde eyebrow rising.

"Yeah. Get your butts over here, I need to show you guys something."

Shaun looked disgruntled at the prospect of being interrupted from his work, but got up. When the other three Assassins were crowded around the computer screen, Rebecca clicked a link to what looked like an amateur news site.

Written in huge black letters, the title of the article proclaimed, 'Mystery Virus Unleashed on Manhattan. Much is Still Unknown.' Apparently, it had been published a day earlier. Desmond squinted his eyes and skimmed the article, catching a glimpse of phrases like 'zombie apocalypse' and 'military troops deployed'.

Shaun scoffed, "Rebecca, I thought you would know better than to trust everything you see on the Internet. This reporting is nowhere near professional. It's probably something an over-exaggerating blogger wrote up to get more views."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid, you ass. A lot of the big news centers touched upon it, but this is the one I found with the most info. Looks like the government is trying to hush this up, but even they can't censor every one of those bloggers and news reporters living in Manhattan."

Rebecca paused, and then rethought her statement. "Well, not everyone. They're trying, though. The sources I'm getting are disappearing almost as quickly as I'm finding them, but I managed to save this article. Plus," She added as an afterthought, "I have a friend living in Manhattan, and she confirmed with me."

"Are you sure your friend is trustworthy?" Lucy asked. Leave it up to Lucy to be so paranoid, Desmond thought.

"Yeah. She's an Assassin too, so she also saw the signs from the data we gathered."

Lucy quirked an eyebrow. "…Signs?"

"The virus, from what information I could find, is a bit too perfect of a killer to be completely natural. Someone engineered it, probably backed by a group with a lot of money- this isn't some bang up job, and though I'm not a geneticist by any means, someone spent years on this project, but the government either doesn't care, or doesn't know about it in the first place.

Rebecca paused. "And what's an organization we know that's incredibly wealthy, powerful enough to influence the whole American government, and has a history with experimenting on genes?"

"You're saying that the Templars are behind this." Shaun deadpanned. "Okay, the Templars are the 'bad guys'. But what possible reason do they have for setting a deadly disease onto the human population?"

Rebecca coughed. "Well, um. I don't know for sure, but I know I can find out soon. The security on the information is insanely good, but I can crack it… Eventually. With the right help."

She changed the subject, "Look at this." The computer expert scrolled down to a word, highlighted in yellow and underlined for good measure.

Gentek.

"According to the amateur reporter who got this story, they were the ones who made the virus in the first place. I looked them up. It's a government company, but its funding? They're coming directly from Templar accounts. There's no way that the Templars didn't have anything to do with this."

Desmond interrupted, "Rebecca, I believe you. But what are we supposed to do about it? We have four people here, not exactly the best number of people to resolve something like- _that_. Besides, I thought it was more important to go back in the Animus and look through Ezio's memories for more information about the solar flares…?"

Surprisingly, Lucy was the one who answered him. "That's important, yes, but if this incident in Manhattan is as Rebecca says, our first priority should be finding out what the Templars are trying to do. But really, there's only one reason they're doing this, we just have to know how. How will killing thousands with a deadly virus get the Templars information about the pieces of Eden?"

"The only way we can do that is if we get in Manhattan ourselves. My friend is a pretty good hacker herself, and she got a lot more info that I do. She says that it's unsafe to send it over to me and that I have to go meet her in person. Besides…."

Rebecca suddenly looked very awkward and sad. "She's my best friend, and my only friend back in training. I can't let her get killed by whatever virus cocktail the Templars cooked up. Even if we can't do anything about the Templars themselves… I just want to get her out of there alive."

Lucy looked at her for a few moments before sighing, conceding, "Fine. We'll go. But we're going to need a plane to get over there. Is there any way you can get transportation without the Templars-"

The other woman had leapt to her seat and started typing as soon as she heard 'Fine'. After pulling up a few programs and new windows, typing feverishly all the way, Rebecca chirped, "No worries! I got us four tickets direct to Manhattan for tomorrow."

Shaun raised an eyebrow, "If it's that easy to get ahold of a way in- you couldn't have had more than an hour's time- why can't that friend of yours get herself out, especially if she's as skilled with technology as you?"

"It's a lot harder to get in than get out. I guess the government doesn't want the general public to think the situation is that bad, so they can't shut down all the flights, but they don't want the virus to spread outside of Manhattan either. There are only a few flights- a lot less than before- going over, but I got tickets for them."

Desmond thought and said, "But even so, that was incredibly fast. Are you sure it's not a Templar trap?"

Rebecca coughed. "I'm sure. To tell you the truth… I actually talked with my friend before showing you guys this article, and she already got those tickets. All I really had to do was to confirm for the boarding passes…"

Lucy broke in, "But again, this is all assuming that your friend is trustworthy. Who is she? There's more than one Assassin living in Manhattan, and the vague description you gave could apply to more than a dozen of them. Tell me her name."

The hacker reluctantly said, "Dana. Dana Mercer. You probably don't know her; there were special circumstances around her going into Assassin training."

"Mercer. That name sounds familiar… I think I heard it somewhere at Abstergo. Wait. Dana Mercer? Wasn't she the Auditore descendant who ran away from one of the New York Assassin communities?"

"Yeah, that's her. But she did come back to finish her training." Rebecca defended. "It wasn't like she just left and decided to never come back- oh. Sorry Desmond."

Desmond awkwardly replied, "No offense taken." Maybe if his sixteen year old self knew how real this was, he would have stayed.

But he knew he was deluding himself. There was no way he would have involved himself if he hadn't been forced into it. Even now, the descendant still wanted to just get away from everything. Desmond had enjoyed normal life- bartending and meeting new people- but it seemed as if he simply wasn't destined for that kind of life.

Oh. Caught up in his own thoughts, Desmond had completely lost track of the nearby conversation. Though to be fair, Shaun had already, perhaps wisely, took his leave from the scene, bent over his books, completely ignoring the chaos on the other side of the room.

"Rebecca, I know she's your friend- but you haven't seen her face to face in more than a year! How do you know Mercer hasn't joined the Templars? After all, her brother is working for Gentek, a known Templar organization-"

"That's her brother, not her! I'll be the first to admit that Alex Mercer is a sociopathic asshole, and I wouldn't really be surprised if he was working directly for the Templars, but Dana doesn't have anything to do with him anymore. He left her alone for years. And even so, you don't know for sure that Dr. Mercer knows he's working for the Templars; we all know there are many normal people caught up in Templar organizations without knowing the truth-"

"Those 'normal' people had no prior knowledge of the Assassin-Templar conflict. Records state that the Mercers grew up knowing the truth- unlike Desmond here- and even if Dr. Mercer is a sociopath, that doesn't mean he's unintelligent. In fact, the tests he took back at the compound indicate the complete opposite. He knows full well what he's got himself into."

Desmond was sure that if the two women kept arguing, the issue would get settled. And to be honest, he didn't want to know that an innocent woman could die because of the Assassin's stubborn secrecy- let alone those thousands of people who could be infected by a deadly virus that they might be able to cure.

So, he spoke up.

"Look, I don't want to get caught and shipped back to Abstergo, but I'm willing to risk it. Lucy, these are the lives of thousands of people. If the Assassins could stop the virus in any way, I really do think we should at least try. Anyways, you already agreed before. "

Rebecca shot Desmond a grateful look, while Lucy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"That was before I found out that Rebecca's contact was Dana Mercer. Of all the Assassins located in Manhattan, it had to be the one most likely to be a Templar spy… "

However, the blonde reluctantly gave in when she saw the identical stubborn, determined looks on both Desmond and Rebecca's faces. "Fine. We'll go, but only because we can't continue our work with the Animus if you two so invested in this matter. But I'm warning you, Desmond. If it turns out to be a Templar trick, I'm giving no promises that I can bust you out of Abstergo again."

"I think at this point, I can get myself out of that hell hole," Desmond shrugged. Frankly, he thought there were too many factors in the whole thing for the Manhattan virus to just be bait for their Assassin group.

The brunette Animus technician hugged Lucy, a giant grin on her face, then shouted to Shaun to 'Hurry up and pack his stuff up, we're going to Manhattan!' The researcher did not seem at all pleased at the news, but seemed to understand that he really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Desmond didn't have anything to bring, not really. His personal possessions had been lost when he had been kidnapped by the Templars and pretty much all he had were the clothes on his back. Though the Assassin did want to help Rebecca's friend- Dana, wasn't it?-but in all honesty, he wanted to take a break from the Animus.

Who knows? Maybe his next trip to the 'past' will end with him gibbering and writing on the wall with his own blood. Desmond just didn't want that to happen anytime soon, and this extended 'vacation' to Manhattan seemed to be a good distraction from his impending doom. After all, the thousands that were currently infected were nothing compared to the overall population of Manhattan- more than 1.6 million people, he remembered.

The whole thing should be easy. Sneak into the Templar controlled facilities and find information on the virus and its properties, and they could get the Assassins to synthesize a cure before the general public of Manhattan knew of the problem. Maybe they could get 'Dana' to ask her brother- the possible Templar supporter- for more information.

If he really was working for the Templars and refused… well, Desmond learned a lot more than free running and leaps of Faith in the Animus. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. Not anymore.

And, if all else fails... the Assassins could simply infiltrate some plane or boat leaving Manhattan. Unless the Templars completely predicted their coming and sent an incredibly large force to capture them, the group should be able to fight their way out with ease. Desmond, with the knowledge and skills of two legendary Assassins, was a one man army just on his own, and Lucy could definitely do a lot of damage. There was no way the mission could go bad.

A few weeks after, Desmond Miles thought back to this day and laughed bitterly. He couldn't have been more wrong.


	3. Chapter 2: Confrontation

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **First impressions are everything.

* * *

In her days in Assassin training, Lucy Stillman had been called many names by her fellow trainees, none of them good. Cold hearted bitch, for one. Her ruthless nature had been reviled, but Lucy saw nothing wrong with her decision making- and still didn't. She was pragmatic to a fault, but she was an _Assassin_. The mission came first, not her teammates.

She was not one to show emotion. Months after her initial encounter with Desmond Miles, she still refused to act on her… interest in his wellbeing. Lucy did not classify it as a 'crush'- merely a momentary infatuation based on illogical reasons.

Escaping from the fortified Abstergo facility with nothing more than her fists and a small blade was nothing to her.

Her first glance of Manhattan, however, stunned her into speechlessness.

She had visited the island about five years ago. It had been a bustling metropolis, filled with people of all races and creeds, a melting pot of humanity. It was impossible to _not_ see people; they were in every street, every building, and every corner of the city.

Now, it seemed more like a post-apocalyptic hell.

There were still people on the streets- Lucy didn't think anything could keep them away, even a nuclear disaster- but decidedly less than before. The buildings were damaged as if attacked by a large animal of some kind, and there was an eerie silence that settled around the city like a deathly shroud.

The sickening odor of disease and death was everywhere, and the people she could see had an unhealthy pale complexion- whether it was the virus or the lack of sun exposure, Lucy did not know. She had a sinking feeling that it was both.

To make things worse, this wasn't even considered to be one of the red zones, the extreme disaster stricken areas of the island. It just so happened that Dana Mercer lived in one such area.

There were few situations where Lucy Stillman would resort to profanity, but this was definitely one of them.

Lucy knew about the virus that had done so much damage to Manhattan, definitely more than any other member of the Assassins. Even more than Rebecca, the one who had first discovered its existence.

That might be surprising if one didn't know that the source of her information were the Templars themselves. Lucy Stillman was, and still is, an undercover Templar spy. She had believed in the Assassin ideals at one time in her life, believed in the inherent goodness of people and freedom.

Lucy was older now; she knew better. Her optimism had been unwarranted, and she had defected to the Templar side.

The woman's face heel turn had led to disastrous consequences for her partner- Clay Kaczmarek, more commonly known as Subject 16. Their mission was to gather information and escape together, but Lucy's betrayal had stranded the other in the Abstergo facility. Lucy couldn't let him go, so that was where he remained until his psychosis driven suicide, soon after.

She didn't like to dwell on the past, especially not on the portion with Subject 16. His bloody writing on the wall still haunted her, even long after his death.

Lucy was usually quite well informed by her Templar superiors, but her information concerning this specific incident had been unusually sparse. They were deliberately hiding things from her, she knew, but there wasn't anything she could really do about it. Not now, at least.

She knew that the Templars had made the virus, though their reasons for doing so were incredibly vague. All she knew was that somehow, it could gather the genetic information of many at a time, making it possible for the Templars to find the pieces of Eden without having to track down individual descendants.

Lucy was briefed on the man behind the virus- Doctor Alex Mercer, brother of the Assassin informant they were here to see. The scientist was a genius- decades ahead anyone else in his field- but also a stone cold psychopath. No task was too ethically problematic for him, and that gained him the favor of the Gentek director. Mercer was quickly made the head scientist of the 'Blacklight' project.

The picture she had been shown at her briefing had been of a bespectacled young man in a stainless white lab coat, the very epitome of calm and normality. But that was only until she looked at his eyes- steely light blue slits glared at her through the picture frame with an almost inhuman intensity and indiscriminate hatred.

It was clear that while Mercer may not be physically threatening, he was definitely dangerous.

The Templars were not unaware of the fact. They had kept a close eye on the scientist, constantly looking for an opportunity to eliminate the man without compromising his work on their virus. But he had found out and fled with a sample of his virus as a safeguard.

That was when her superiors started avoiding the subject. All she knew was that somehow, Mercer had gotten away more or less alive and the virus was released into Manhattan ahead of schedule.

Lucy was told that this 'Blacklight' shouldn't be dangerous (or, she suspected, just not to her), and that the Templars had a cure if it ever got life threatening. The virus was supposed to be released for only a few days before it was contained and taken back to be used in a modified Animus.

Clearly, that plan had gone horribly wrong. It was the sixth day of the infection and the virus showed no signs of faltering. Lucy had informants in Manhattan who told her of the rampaging Infected, diseased humans morphed into brainless, ravenous beasts by the Blacklight virus.

That was definitely not what the Templars have planned, unless they wanted to use _those_ for the Animus- which didn't seem very likely to her, seeing how they no longer possessed minds. She entertained the thought of an Infected sized Animus, then banished it from her mind.

The Assassin had agreed to Rebecca's demands, albeit reluctantly, because Lucy had underestimated the mission. It was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission. All they had to do was to get Dana Mercer out of the city as it recovered from the outbreak. Now, the Assassins had to rescue the woman from the red zone and somehow smuggle her out of Manhattan, all during what seemed like the second coming of the Black Plague.

Desmond was off asking for directions from random pedestrians, Shaun was complaining to himself about, well, everything, Rebecca had set up her laptop, and Lucy? She was cursing herself and her naivety in believing what the Templars had told her. The woman agreed with their goals… but she didn't exactly approve of their methods.

"Lucy!" Rebecca said, tapping her smartphone excitedly, "Dana sent me a message, but it's heavily encrypted. From what I can tell, she's in her safehouse. Blackwatch- it's the military organization in charge of blockading the whole island- paid her a visit for some reason, but she got away from them. She doesn't want to risk them making a second attempt."

"Where is that safehouse of hers, then?"

"Near… Times Square?" Rebecca squinted. "Oh, okay- there we go. She says its south west of the Square, in the apartments."

Just as Lucy opened her mouth, preparing to ask where exactly Times Square was- she hadn't been in Manhattan for years, and she wasn't exactly sightseeing at the time- Desmond returned with an adora- (no, don't think like that, she reprimanded herself, banishing the thought from her mind)- wide smile on his face.

"I got a map from the man over there. I don't know how well it will help us though, it only has the main tourist attractions around here… the ends of the island, Times Square …"

"It'll do fine." Lucy interrupted.

For a man who spent the majority of his life in some sort of isolation from the general public, Desmond was quite good at reading maps. He said it was because of how frequently he had to hitchhike; he was often dropped off miles from his destination. It was because of that skill that the Assassins got to Mercer's safehouse before dark.

Climbing up several flights of stairs- unsurprisingly, the elevators weren't working- proved to be not much of a problem for three fourths of the Assassin group, though Shaun lagged behind, red faced and panting heavily.

Rebecca knocked on the mahogany door with a slight hesitation. A brief moment passed- the occupant seemed to be looking through the peep hole- before the door was opened and the hacker was pulled into a hug.

"You made it!" The other woman- Dana Mercer, it seemed- said excitedly. Lucy studied her appearance. She had brown hair and a familiar facial structure, not to mention even more familiar pale blue eyes, though they lacked the intensity of her brother's. This was the person they were looking for.

The Assassins were ushered into the apartment quickly and Shaun plopped down onto the couch with a grateful groan.

"That was only fifteen flights!" Rebecca teased. "Even Desmond could do it, and he's been semi-comatose for the last few weeks!"

Shaun shot her a dirty look. "I'm a scholar, not a bloody _athlete_."

She held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay- I'm just saying!"

Dana quickly engaged in conversation with her old friend and Lucy, Shaun, and Desmond were left sitting on the ratty couch, staring awkwardly at each other as the two brunette hackers squealed and chatted excitedly.

"Dana, I was so worried when you told me about the Blackwatch soldier- how did you get away? Did you use your… womanly wiles?" Rebecca asked, doing a strange eyebrow wiggle.

"Ah- no, Becca, nothing like _that_! Besides, he's dead." The other woman answered, a mock horrified look on her face.

"Oh. Seems like you haven't gotten rusty since we were back in training, then."

"No, I didn't kill him. Someone else did, actually."

"…Someone else?" Rebecca asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dana hesitated. "Well, seeing how I got all of you mixed up in my mess, I guess I should tell you. Alex came over."

Lucy's ears perked at the familiar name. Alex Mercer. So, Mercer was in contact with the man who engineered the virus outbreak of Manhattan. This could be information important to the Templars. She unconsciously leaned forward.

"Alex? Your brother?" Rebecca laughed in slight disbelief. "Dana, he's six foot and a hundred fifty pounds. He would probably lose a fight against a punching bag."

"Stop it. He's not _that_ weak." Her friend batted playfully at her. "Besides, he got really… I don't know… muscular between now and the time I last saw him. He must be… I don't know, twenty or thirty pounds heavier in pure muscle. _Anyways_," She said, "I was in my apartment when this Blackwatch grunt just knocks my door down. He tried to get me to go with him, I said no, things escalated… And Alex walked in on the two of us having a tussle."

"So, he killed him?"

"Yeah." Mercer looked rather uncomfortable on delving into further detail. Lucy didn't blame her,

"I don't mean anything, but… um. It's a bit hard to believe that _Alex_ of all people would just walk into your apartment willingly after ten years of avoiding you and kill a guy, just like that."

"I know it's unbelievable, but it's what happened." Dana said defensively.

"You know, if I had to choose what sounded less crazy out of the two, I would pick your brother killing someone. Every time." Privately, Lucy agreed. Mercer did indeed seem like the murderous type. "Did he say what made him come over?"

"Well. He told me that he found out that Blackwatch was coming after me and was worried about my safety."

"And you believed him?" Rebecca asked incredulously. "Look, I've _met_ your brother- sure, I haven't known him as well as you do, but that sounds like something incredibly out of character of him. He ask you to do anything for him?"

"Yes and no. He says that he needs my help to end the infection."

"That's really charitable of him." The other woman huffed. "I'm not saying that your brother might be lying to you, but… I think he's lying to you."

"Hey! I know you don't like Alex, but he's not _that_ bad! Besides, I don't think he has any ulterior motives. He's really changed from the last time you met him, you know."

"I would _hope_ so. Last time I saw him, he acted like he would sell out his own grandmother if he could get anything out of it. Dana, has it occurred to you that he might be using you?"

"Yes, it has." Mercer said, a fierce look in her eyes. "Becca, you don't _understand_. He's acting… almost like an older brother. He cares about me. It's not something I'm going to throw away just because of some _suspicions_."

Lucy understood; after all, she had read through most of Abstergo's files on the Mercer siblings. The woman must be so starved for her brother's attention that she was blind to his manipulations.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed that Desmond and Shaun had started a game of… well, she didn't know exactly _what_ it was called, but it involved fingers and tapping. She didn't blame them, but Lucy didn't feel like interrupting the conversation and lose the information she could gain.

"Where is your brother now?" She asked, tired of the inane babble.

Dana looked startled at the blunt interruption. "He's out in the city right now. I'm not sure exactly where."

"You sure he will be okay? It's not exactly safe down there, especially here in the red zone." Rebecca asked.

This wasn't an irrational fear. Even ignoring the Infected, there were many muggers who turned the situation to their advantage. As in every disaster, they have started threatening the civilians who passed through the streets. The one they had encountered had met the sharp end of Desmond's concealed blade.

"Trust me, he'll be fine." It seemed as if there was something especially hilarious to Dana to have to reassure them of her brother's safety.

"When will he be back?"

"Um, he usually comes back after dark, so in an hour or so. But when Alex comes back… you four might want to get out of his way before I explain everything to him."

Lucy personally did not see what could be so threatening about a workaholic geneticist, but she nodded.

Dana got up. "I have a few extra rooms here- you can use them. I know most of the other places to live aren't as safe as the safehouse-"

"Course we'll live here!" Rebecca smiled brightly.

Suddenly, Lucy heard a slight thumping noise, like extremely heavy footsteps. But they weren't coming up the stairs- they were… no, that's impossible, there can't possibly be someone running up a building-?

A dark blur dove through the open window and landed into the apartment, black tendrils swarming around the body before it reformed into what looked like a hoodie wearing thug in a leather jacket.

Lucy reacted instinctively, activating her concealed blade and grabbing Dana, pulling her away from the- whatever it was. An Infected?

"Dana. I need your help." The thing started in a gravelly voice, then looked up. Icy blue eyes narrowed in anger as the creature took in the scene.

"What are you doing to Dana." The 'man' growled in a voice more animal-like than man, grounding out each word. Then, his hands _shifted_- one moment, they were pale, fleshy fingers. The next, he had long, sharp claws that must have been more than a feet long- each.

Lucy absentmindedly noticed that the deathly pale face under the hoodie looked familiar, but pushed it out of her mind. All she had in her favor was her mind and her hidden blade, and the last thing she needed right now was to be distracted.

Maybe grabbing Mercer wasn't such a good idea.


	4. Chapter 3: Second Impressions

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **Dana's cannibalistic, betentacled older brother with a penchant for property damage gets into a standoff with a couple of trained Assassins, one of which has her knife to Dana's throat. In _her_ apartment. Yeah, _no_.

* * *

Dana Mercer had never had what was considered a 'normal life'. Her father had been killed before she was born, and her abusive, drunkard of a mother had died in prison when she was only a kid. The only parental figure she had ever known was her distant older brother, who had only grown more and more uncaring over the years, culminating in him abandoning her for some cushy, high-paying job in Manhattan without a second thought.

Okay, so she was still bitter about that. But she was also a totally badass Assassin whose ancestry traced back to Renaissance Italy, which kind of-but-not-really made up for her crappy early life. Alright, so she didn't inherit that legendary 'Eagle Vision' that her great-great-whatever grandfather had, but whatever. Dana was a fucking parkour master- which, was one of the reasons she didn't have a car (the other being lack of funds, because college). Alex had _no_ idea what he missed out on.

Then her brother had made contact (after five _years_ of nothing) and she had, against her will, jumped at the call, and moved to Manhattan. He needed her help with some research on his company, and she had agreed without hesitation. Then after about a month, he had stopped all contact, and soon after, she got a visitor.

Dana had opened her apartment door, only to be greeted by a faceless black mask. He wanted her to come with him, and she wasn't stupid enough to say yes. The soldier decided that he preferred to convince her the old fashioned way- that is, using blunt force- and fuck, she really shouldn't have left her favorite knife back at her safehouse. Dana was pretty good at hand-to-hand, but her opponent was six foot four and weighed at least twice as much as herself. So, she wasn't embarrassed to admit that yeah, she was losing pretty badly.

Then she heard her brother shout her name, and she had an 'Oh _fuck_' moment. Alex wasn't exactly a skilled fighter, after all, and though he gave her a distraction, he would probably end up being a liability in this fight.

And… well, he proved her wrong. The soldier was yanked off of her and when she whipped around to land a blow, she got a front seat view to her brother punching right through the man's _chest_. That had been the start of a frankly batshit crazy day.

Some asshole had set lose a viral bioweapon in Manhattan that had turned into a pseudo-zombie apocalypse, almost overnight. Her brother was now an ultraviolent superhuman with extreme resilience and super-strength (and, she learned somewhat traumatically, soon after, assimilated people like the monster from that old sci-fi movie she watched as a teen). And to top that off, the people responsible for the former were her brother's old employers, and Alex had complete amnesia.

She had called for backup. The info she found on Gentek made it obvious that Templars had a hand in the whole mess, and a single Assassin, albeit one with a super powered older brother, couldn't take care of this on her own. Besides, she hadn't seen Rebecca for _years_.

Things were going pretty well until Alex decided to jump through her fucking window in the middle of her Very Important conversation with (metaphorically) trigger happy Assassins. Unsurprisingly, that had caused quite a bit of a stir, and her brother and the Assassins had gotten into a Mexican standoff. Hell, tumbleweed drifting past wouldn't have been out of place at this point.

It was such an absurd situation that Dana would have laughed if her brother didn't have foot long claws and Stillman didn't have her blade so close to her throat. Cellphone videos told her all she wanted to know about Alex's destructive capabilities- she remembered desperately hoping that the government wouldn't be sending her a bill for all those obliterated skyscrapers- and Stillman was infamous for her pragmatic approach to combat.

There was going to be a bloodbath in her apartment if this continued on for long, and she was pretty sure that the Assassins would be the ones going down. Alex had always been pretty impulsive, even before all this shit- now, he seemed more like a walking time bomb. As if making up for the last five years, he had gotten incredibly overprotective over his sister. Those two facts didn't bode well for Stillman, or any of the other members of the Assassin group.

Dana had to get herself out of this shit, and fast. She slammed her head backwards, hoping that Stillman wouldn't get anything worse than a really bad nosebleed, and grabbed her arm and _yanked, _trying to get the blade as far away as possible. The blonde woman stumbled backwards, blood gushing out of her nose, and Dana took the chance to jump in between the two opponents.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you people are doing?" She barked. "Alex, what the hell? I thought I already told you not to get your claws out for every little thing. And _you_," Dana redirected her glare to the Assassins, or more specifically, Lucy Stillman. "Don't grab me like that."

Alex looked at her in confusion, his claws still out. "Dana, they were threatening you." He said, enunciating each word like he thought she had gone temporary insane.

"No, actually they weren't." Dana sighed, bringing a hand up to her nose bridge. "Look, Alex, people get surprised when you just jump into a fifteen floor apartment through the window, alright? I mean, _I've _had a couple days to get used to it, and I _still _get a mini-heart attack every time you burst in like that."

Didn't she tell Alex to cut it out after the first few times? Yeah, she did, she was sure of that. But _no_, he couldn't use the door like a normal person. She should close the windows and see what he did then. Actually no, he'd just jump through the glass and act like he didn't know why she got so pissed off.

"Yeah, what she said." One of the Assassins said, backing her up. "Lucy didn't mean anything, she just got freaked out over you doing your… thing." Dana shot him a look of gratitude. He looked familiar, but she was sure she had never met him before.

Alex still looked pretty dubious, but his claws disappeared in a swarm of crimson veined black tendrils and turned back into a regular, if not extremely pale human hand. Dana heard a sharp intake of breath behind her. Crap. She was going to have to explain to them about Alex, something she was _really_ not looking forward to.

"Who are you?" He growled, still glaring at the new arrivals. Dana shot Rebecca a furtive look.

Rebecca smiled disarmingly. "We're Dana's college buddies!" She said cheerfully, "I'm Rebecca Crane, this is Shaun," She waved over at a rather disgruntled bespectacled man, "Desmond," the Assassin who backed Dana up a few minutes before, "And Lucy." She pointed at the blonde woman, who was now trying to stem her nosebleed- luckily, it wasn't broken. "We all go to NYU together."

'Desmond' and 'Shaun' were two who Dana had never met before. But still, both names sounded familiar. Desmond… Miles? The Mentor's son, the one who had direct lineages to most of the big name Assassins, the one who had run away about a decade ago? Dana blinked. The last she had heard, he was still AWOL. And Shaun… she was pretty sure he was the English guy- 'Guy Fawkes', or something- that Rebecca had recruited into the Order two years ago.

Alex accepted the explanation, not seeming to notice that Dana's 'college friends' were at least four years older than she was. Not that that wasn't a good thing.

"This is my older brother, Alex." Dana took the opportunity to add.

"Yeah, we've met before." Rebecca replied. "It's just, I didn't recognize him at first. I mean, I've never seen him wearing a hoodie or having those… the…"

"The claws." Shaun finished. And yeah, that was definitely 'Guy Fawkes'. The British accent gave him away completely. "Look, Mercer, I don't like tip toeing around the subject. Why did your brother have claws? Because, last time I checked, normal human beings didn't have foot long blades coming from their hands."

That wasn't something she wanted to get into, and she cursed mentally. "He's not exactly a normal human being." Dana said simply. "But before I explain, how about we put away the weapons?" She gestured at Desmond and Lucy's hidden blades- and that was pretty odd, most of those had been destroyed over the centuries- and they did so. Lucy did seem a bit mad about the whole nose-breaking thing, and Dana shot her an apologetic look. Hey, it was her nose or their lives.

* * *

Alex Mercer was not one to talk things out. He had only talked to one person since the outbreak began, and that was his sister, Dana. Well, he had shouted expletives at his foes, but he didn't think that counted.

It didn't really bother him. From what he gathered, he hadn't been really sociable, even before Blacklight. Dr. Alex Mercer had much preferred his projects to the company of others.

It made sense that he favored a more hands-on approach. Did talking stop those Blackwatch grunts from shooting at him that first day, as he half-stumbled, half-ran from the morgue, disoriented and confused? Could he find out the truth behind what had happened to himself by asking nicely?

Well, Dana might think so, but Alex was cynical enough to know otherwise. That was why his sister had told him to temporarily stay out of the safe house until she had explained everything to the newcomers. He had objected, of course, but Dana did not relent, practically shoving him out of the room.

Normally, Alex would have refused, would have demanded that anything Dana wanted to say to her friends, she should say to him as well. But he still remembered that whole catastrophe from two days before- the mess with the Bloodtox bullets and the forced revelation of his new dietary needs. He didn't want to jeopardize his relationship with Dana any more than he already had- it was the only thing he had, nowadays.

So here he was now, tearing through one of the newly infected water towers- _Damn_ Elizabeth Greene- and painting the concrete red with viscera and gore. A lumbering Hunter lost its head in a spray of brain matter and pieces of skull. A single Whipfist sent a few regular Infected flying into the wall, the force breaking their spines and sending them crumpling to the ground, groaning helplessly before they were enveloped by squirming tendrils.

Alex always felt better after he ate.

* * *

Inside the safehouse, Dana shut the door resolutely and turned to the Assassins.

"Alex isn't near enough to eavesdrop." She announced. "But knowing him, he won't stay away for long. So, let's get this done quickly. What do you already know?"

"Not much, sorry; probably much less than you do... I haven't had a chance to look." Rebecca said, apologetically. "Well, since we're all pretty confused here, Dana- can you tell us what's going on?'

"Alright," The other hacker sighed. "It all started a month ago; Alex called me, out of the blue, and asked me to investigate a company. Gentek. Yeah, the same one he works- worked for."

"What did you find out?" Lucy asked, quirking an eyebrow. Her nose had stopped bleeding.

"I've already told Rebecca about this, but Gentek is definitely Templar-controlled. The head- McMullen- was a high ranking operative in Abstergo before he started Gentek, and that company is being funded by known Templar accounts."

"I... see." The blonde said, seemingly perturbed for some reason. Dana continued.

"So I found out some stuff- there wasn't much, to be honest- and sent it over to Alex. He didn't reply for months... then something arrived in the mail. A laptop- Alex's laptop, to be exact. Turns out he found more than I did; guess he had easier access to the database than me. I didn't turn it on until a few days ago, though. Alex didn't make contact with me after that... until about a week ago."

"Anyways, there was a big incident down at Penn Station. Some terrorist unleashed a bioweapon in the subway, the virus that's infecting Manhattan. It killed everyone there in seconds, and kept on spreading."

Dana paused a bit. She hadn't talked so much in a long time, seeing how her only human company since the beginning of the outbreak was her stoic, quiet brother.

"I found Blackwatch in my apartment the day after- they were waiting for me. Probably because of whatever shit my brother got himself mixed up with. Then..." She swallowed. "This is the crazy part. I heard someone jump in, shout my name- and the next thing I knew, there was fucking arterial blood on my face because my brother's arm was impaling the guy's chest."

There was an awkward silence. "Well, there you have it. Our lives have officially jumped the shark." Shaun announced.

"Wait, so Alex literally... punched through the guy's body?" Rebecca asked incredulously. Dana nodded.

Desmond, however, seemed unfazed. "What?" He asked, feeling the stares of his fellow Assassins. "Don't tell me we haven't seen weirder shit before. Remember, we've been spending the last few months going through memories of my ancestors that were somehow stored in my DNA. A holographic woman from a completely different civilization told me that the world's going to end in 2012. How is some guy having... super strength weirder than that?"

Lucy nodded her head. "As Assassins, we must understand that anything is possible. After all, 'Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.' But the real question here is... how?" There was a strange, hungry glint in her eye as she asked.

"Wait, what the fuck- the 2012 bullshit is real?" Rebecca opened her mouth to answer, but Dana quickly added, "Nevermind. Tell me later. I can't take in so much weird shit this quickly."

"Anyways, the thing with Alex is... well, we don't really know for sure. That's what the both of us have been investigating, and I'm guessing that whatever, or whoever made him the way he is now... had a hand in the outbreak... He's been infected by the virus, that much I know, but he's nothing like the other Infected. He still has his mind, after all."

The other Infected were huge, hulking beasts with little to no human sentience left. They were strong, of course, but all brawn, no brains. Dana had seen grainy phone camera footage of the things Alex could do- the claws, bludgeons, even flying at one time. There was no doubt that her brother had been infected; his symptoms and skills made anything else out of the question.

She kept some things from the Assassins. After all, they didn't need to know about her brother's... unique dietary habits, did they? Besides, Dana had reacted pretty badly to finding out herself, and it was her brother. Seeing what they had done in response to Alex's less shocking habits...

Well, it wouldn't end well.

* * *

A leopard never changes his spots.

Rebecca had met Alex Mercer; she knew what kind of person he was. More importantly, she could easily see the darker parts of the man's psyche, parts that his sister was blind to. The hacker had seen his records; the chances were extremely high that Mercer was a Templar or had worked for them knowingly.

So, she was pretty dubious when she had been informed of the scientist's convenient amnesia. After all, retrograde amnesia rarely worked the way they did in pop culture. It seemed far more likely to her that Mercer, sensing an opportunity to use his Assassin sister for information, faked the memory loss to get himself in his superior's graces.

But now, she wasn't so sure. Rebecca had barely recognized the man when he had jumped into the room and his new personality was at odds at his previous cold and emotionless one. Instead of his perpetual formal dress, Mercer wore a gray hoodie (and wasn't _that_ ironic, she thought, a _hoodie_) and a leather jacket that wouldn't have looked out of place on a common thug.

Rebecca was an Assassin. Maybe not born into it, but she had been one for long enough to have learned to always be suspicious... and this situation... was very suspicious. For one, she was sure that Mercer was nowhere near as innocent as his sister made him seem.

"Look, I know none of you trust Alex... but give him a chance." Dana sighed. "He doesn't remember anything about Templars- or Assassins. I don't want to explain it to him until he's back to normal. Even if my brother was a Templar at Gentek... he doesn't remember anything now-"

It was then that the door thudded open and the man himself walked in casually, looking much more relaxed than he had been before. Rebecca blinked. How long had he been standing there, and how much had he heard?

"Alex!" Dana stood up.

"I'm back." Mercer said, somewhat redundantly. "I got something to eat." For some reason, Dana got pale. "Don't worry, the food was safe." He put a strange emphasis on 'safe' and his sister gave a sigh of relief. Rebecca blinked. Was the food supply contaminated?

"That's… good."

Mercer inclined his head. "Right. Why are _they_ still here?"

"I actually asked them to come. I figured we're going to need some help dealing with Greene- I mean, it's just the two of us against the might of the U.S. government and some crazy zombie controlling college girl."

"You think they can help?" This was said rather dubiously. Rebecca frowned. Okay, so they didn't look like much. Doesn't mean they should be underestimated.

"Yeah, actually." Dana replied, not elaborating.

Mercer nodded, seeming to accept the answer.

"Wait, actually, we're only here to get you out of this hell hole- your brother too, I suppose. We didn't come to wage a war against a zombie virus and the American military." Shaun added quickly.

"Yeah, about that..." Dana coughed, "I doubt Blackwatch will let us off that easily... considering they've been hunting Alex and I ever since the outbreak started. Besides... the military has officially canceled all flights or ships leaving Manhattan."

"What?" The Assassin historian yelped. "Of all- I didn't come here to get stuck in a bloody zombie apocalypse!"

"We don't seem to have a choice." Lucy said, face pale. She gave Rebecca a discreet dirty look. Hey, it wasn't like she knew the infection would get that bad! "What was that you were saying about 'Greene'?" The blonde questioned.

"Elizabeth Greene." Mercer growled, in a voice like he was gargling marbles. "She's the leader of the Infected- if we take her down, the infection will be scattered- disorganized. If Greene is gone, so will her virus."

The name seemed to strike a chord in Lucy's mind, because she exclaimed, "Greene? How did she get out? She's been trapped since-" Noticing the Mercers' suspicious stares, the blonde explained. "I saw her name in the files at Abstergo, during my time undercover."

"So um, Lucy, who exactly is she?" Desmond asked. "Because I'm guessing normal people can't control a virus with their mind."

"I'll explain." Dana interrupted, seeing how the blonde seemed unwilling to elaborate. "We found out about her from the laptop that Alex sent me before the outbreak. Apparently, she used to be a resident of Hope, Idaho, a military town. What is happening in Manhattan right now... happened in Hope, forty years ago. Some higher-up in the government decided to test a new virus created by Blackwatch- Redlight."

Redlight? Rebecca thought hard. That name did sound familiar... could she have encountered the word in her researches?

"Anyways," Her friend continued, "Everyone in that town was infected with the virus- many of them dying, but some of them mutating. One of them... was Elizabeth Greene. She was the perfect host- the virus created a hivemind, and she controlled it. But... Blackwatch took control of the town, destroying all of its inhabitants... except Greene. Instead, they kept her trapped in a Gentek facility."

"Why would they keep her alive? Hell, who would let her _out_?" Shaun spluttered.

Mercer and Dana shared a look. "…Nobody did," She said finally, "The current infection weakened her holdings, and she managed to escape that way."

"So... we can get off this bloody island as soon as the infection is done with?" The historian asked hopefully.

Dana shrugged, "Hopefully."

"Yes, well, I say that we go for it." Shaun, seeing the other's incredulous looks, said, "What? It doesn't look like we have much of a choice here."

"No, I mean, I just didn't expect you to be the first one to agree." Rebecca explained.

As Dana's college friends left the room, Alex took the opportunity to tap his sister on the shoulder.

"I found something the other night- I'm hoping that you can find out more about it." He said in response to Dana's questioning glance.

She looked down at the glinting red cross in his outstretched hand.


	5. Chapter 4: Building

**Rating: **K+

**Summary: **Dana gives an explanation.

* * *

Dana stared blankly at the red cross for a moment. "Where did you get this?" She asked finally, holding a hand out expectantly. "Let me take a look at it."

Her brother dropped the bauble in her hand without hesitation. "I got it off of a Blackwatch commander. He wasn't exactly… open to questioning by the time I was done with him."

Knowing Alex, that probably meant that he splattered the man's insides all over the walls- or he ate him. Dana couldn't help but hope desperately for the former. She wanted to be able to explain the Templar-Assassin conflict on her own terms, not with the ghost of a dead Templar influencing her brother's thoughts.

"Well. I knew I couldn't keep it from you forever- I wanted to tell you after you got your memories back; I thought it would just complicate things. But…" She shrugged, "Looks like the Templars are definitely involved with Blackwatch."

She didn't mention that she was hoping that she would never _have_ to explain. Alex knew about the Templars and the Assassins before he lost his memory, so he should regain that along with his memories when he gets there.

"So, that's what they're called. Templars."

"Yeah, Templars- like the Knights Templar, in the Crusades- they used to be a military order, way back then. They modernized though. They're more of a corporate giant than a group of warriors now."

"Why are they after me?"

"I don't know for sure. I wouldn't keep something like _that_ from you if I knew, Alex- but it's either because of your new abilities, or because of our ancestors- you know, I'm getting way ahead of myself." Dana chuckled weakly. "I'll start from the beginning."

* * *

It all started- well, really, nobody knows just _when_ this all started. At least two thousand years, but some people think that it's existed since the start of human civilization. _We've_ existed- that is, the Order- since… Roman times, I think. That's the farthest back our historians have found records of.

Yeah, another name for the Order _is_ the Assassins- but Alex, where did you hear that from? I thought you didn't remember anything from before. No, I haven't killed anyone. That name just kind of stuck after a while. I mean, the Templars aren't religious warriors anymore, and _their_ name doesn't get questioned half as many times as Assassins do.

I didn't just _join_ the Assassins, Alex. I was born into this- _we_ were, actually, but that's a story for later. So no, I didn't decide to get inducted into a cult while you were at college- as _unbelievable_ as it may seem.

The Templars? They're pretty old too- they existed since the Persian Empire- and there's been _huge_ animosity between the Assassins and the Templars ever since they were established. One's _against_ free will- that's the Templars, by the way, the other _for_ it… it's no wonder we've been killing each other over the centuries.

No, Alex, you don't understand. This is _huge_. Almost every event in history had interference from Assassins or Templars, or both. Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar's assassination. The Crusades- alright, that one was kind of obvious. The Revolutionary War.

I'm not fucking with you. Don't make that face at me- look, did _I_ roll my eyes like that when you told me you got infected by a bioweapon and turned into goddamn viral Superman?

Granted, you punching through that guy's chest was pretty convincing evidence. My point still stands, alright?

_Anyways_. The Templars got their fingers in every pie on the damn planet. Every single first world government- and most of the other countries- has a Templar in the top ranks. They practically founded Gentek and Blackwatch; apparently, they press gang all of their high ranking employees into their ranks.

I'm going to be blunt. The Assassin Order screwed up. The grandmasters still think in medieval terms, but that doesn't work in today's world. The Templars have the upper hand now- it's all we can do to try to minimalize the damage they do. We don't have the resources to strike back.

…Yeah, I know you don't want to know about that. I'm done with stalling- might as well get this over with.

There's two ways into the Assassin Order- you're either born into it, or you get initiated into it. It's a hereditary thing. Assassin genes are dominant or something, I don't know- I was never the scientist in our family. The thing is, our great-great-great-whatever granddad was Ezio de Auditore da Firenze.

Yes, that means we're part Italian. But the point is, he was an Assassin- a really good one. But before he became one, he _really_ got around. The man was Casanova two centuries before Casanova. He had a lot of descendants, and our branch of the family was one of them.

I know you don't remember this, but- our mom was awful. We're Auditore descendants from our dad's side of the family- he died, killed actually, just a few years after I was born. He wasn't all there before, anyhow. We ended up in foster care, but some higher ups pulled a few strings, so we got sent to an Assassin settlement. Official documents say that we got sent back to mom when you were nine. In reality, she died in prison.

You… left when you were a teenager, went off to Columbia- even now, I don't know how you managed to impress them when you were living in the equivalent of an Amish community. I didn't- I was still a kid then. I ended up leaving a few years later, but I came back to finish training. You never did- you were always more suited to the outside world than I was.

I'm pretty sure you guessed by now that Rebecca, Desmond, and the others aren't my friends from college. They're… _complicated_. I _did_ know Rebecca from training, but the others, I didn't know personally.

Lucy's the blonde one- _please_ don't kill her, I'm not that fond of her in the first place, but I don't want her _dead_.

Alex, I know that she threatened me. I was there. I'm not saying that I trust her, but I can see where she's coming from. You're my brother, but you can be really fucking terrifying. Alright, fine, if she does it again, feel free to do whatever you want. It's not like I can stop you, anyways.

Shaun was recruited into the Assassins- I think Rebecca was in charge of that. He's a hell of a researcher, but he can be a complete asshole at times. Don't dismember him.

You know Desmond. His dad's pretty much the unofficial leader of the Assassins nowadays. He grew up on a settlement and ran off when he was sixteen, became a bartender or some shit here in New York City. The man's the descendant of two pretty infamous bloodlines- he's very distantly related to us, and he's also one of the legendary Assassin, Altair, who basically made the Order what it is today.

That's why the Templars went after him. The info isn't widespread- I can probably weasel it out of Rebecca sooner or later- but they found some kind of way to tap into one's DNA and look into the past. Or something. Hell, _you're_ the geneticist, not me- stop looking at me like that.

Rebecca, Lucy, Shaun, and Desmond- they're a team. Lucy was the one who got Desmond out of Templar custody, so they're pretty close, if you know what I mean.

They've agreed to help us get this whole thing straight- Alex, you might be have superhuman powers, but we both know you're not well versed in the whole… information gathering area. Yes, fine, you have before, but the Templars are going to notice something going on if their employees keep getting eaten.

_Please_, Alex- just work with me on this. I know you don't like them. Heck, I don't either- the only one I trust out of the four is Rebecca. But we need all the help we can get, and it's just until we end the infection and get you back to normal. It's just us two against the world, and even though you probably _prefer_ that, we're going to need help.

So, what do you say? I'm not asking you to be their best friends- just. Don't kill them.

* * *

"You really aren't screwing with me." Alex stated bluntly.

"I fucking _wish _I was. Manhattan just turned ground zero for a disease deadlier than the bubonic and the people in charge are blaming it all on you, a virus addled madwoman escaped from custody and is now wreaking havoc on the city, and my brother came back from the dead and _eats_ people- this is sure as hell not a good time to joke."

He stared at Dana with wide eyes. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen her angry in the past- she had cursed out a fair amount of Blackwatch and Gentek employees in the past, be it to their face or to the computer screen. But this was different. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bad as the blank stare and horrified response she had had to his dietary needs.

The awkward silence after the particular outburst was broken by a heavy sigh from his sister.

"Sorry- I just… it's been a really bad couple days for me. None of this was your fault; it's stupid of me to blow up at you about it." She scratched the back of her head, messing up her hair even more than it already was.

"I don't _eat_ anyone who doesn't deserve it." Alex responded defensively. "You've seen what Blackwatch has done- Gentek too."

"I know. But even then, they're people- it's just..." Dana cut off. "Never mind. From what we know, you kind of _have_ to eat people, and better killers than some old grandma off the street."

He fidgeted, remembering one of his victims during one of his earlier outings, specifically one Eloise Goodman, age 63, who had been visiting her adult son for the first time in years. She hadn't even had the time to blink before her biomass was consumed and her conscience assimilated into the hivemind of Alex's mind. He had been heavily wounded by Blackwatch guns and wasn't very concerned of exactly whose life he took to restore the precious biomass he had lost.

Now, he had to wonder if he should have been.

Suddenly eager to change the subject to something slightly less uncomfortable, he blurted, "I'll do it."

"Do what?" His sister blinked, disoriented from the sudden statement.

"Miles. Stillman. The 'Assassins'. They can help, as long as they keep out of my way. I won't kill them."

"That's- that's _great_. Don't worry; you don't have to let them tag along with you like sidekicks or anything. Somehow, I don't think they'll agree to that in the first place." A smile spread across her face, "I take it you believe me?"

"…It's an insane story." Dana's smile waned a bit, but he continued. "But yes, I do."

If it had been anyone else, Alex would probably have laughed in their face. But this was Dana, his only ally since his disoriented return to the living world. She had never did anything to him- probably the only person who haven't at the present- and didn't look at him with fear, not since _that_. If he couldn't trust her, who _could_ he trust?

Dana smiled widely, and that was the only warning he got.

Alex wasn't as detached to not know what a hug was- he got enough memories of them from the people he had consumed. But he had never experienced one; maybe before the infection, but definitely not after. Hell, he didn't think he'd been touched since that time, other than the occasional desperate soldier throwing an ineffectual fist at his face.

Which was why, when his younger sister pulled him into a hug, his initial reaction was a stark _'what the fuck'_ before he automatically let loose his defenses. It was all he could do to keep himself from consuming Dana- _his own _sister- on fucking accident. He struggled out of her grasp in a momentary panic- _no no no not Dana_- and scrambled away to a safe distance, shifting some of his escaped tendrils back into human body parts.

"Alex, you- It's alright, there's nothing wrong with, you know, not wanting to be touched." Dana started, looking so hurt that he wanted to explain that no, it wasn't _her_, it was _him_- him and his complete lack of fucking self-control. But explaining would only strain their relationship more, if not damage it beyond repair. How the hell do you tell your sister that you almost ate her on accident?

"I think I need to- I need to leave." He rasped.

Dana looked as if she was going to protest, but decided not to. Instead, she said, "There's something- someone, actually- who you should look for. You don't remember her, but you had a girlfriend before everything went down. Her name's Karen Parker- here, I have her address for you. More likely than not, she knows what happened to you, and why. Get to her before the military does."

"…Thank you." Alex took the small strip of paper and memorized the contents with a glance, crumpling the paper in his clenched fist. He made his way out, pretending not to notice Dana looking sadly at his back.

This was dangerous. _He _was dangerous, and if there was one thing he couldn't bear to lose- and there _is_ only one- it was Dana. Not until I get back to normal, he told himself, I can patch things up with Dana when I get this virus out of my system. _We can do some brother-sister bonding shit_, he thought wryly, _go to Disneyworld or something. Anything's better than _this_._

Dana stared blankly at the closed door, not knowing just when- or _if_- she will see her brother again. _Alex. Be careful._

* * *

"I got good news and bad news. Which one you guys want first?" Rebecca asked cheerfully, strolling into the abandoned apartment the Assassins had set up as a temporary base. It wasn't the same building as Mercer's, but it was in the general residential area. This was good- Shaun did not want to sleep in the same building as the murderous virus creature, thank you very much.

"The good." He decided, turning away from the police reports of the Penn Station incident that he had been studying.

"Dana told her brother everything she knows about the Assassins and the Templars."

"…How is that a _good_ thing?" Shaun spluttered.

"He doesn't want to kill us, and he's willing to work with us to quell the infection."

That was enough to appease him. As long Mercer wasn't going to barrel through the wall and disassemble his body parts- he liked his appendages where they currently were, alright?- in a gory fashion, well, that's enough for him.

Unsurprisingly, Lucy wasn't as easily mollified. He swore that the temperature of their apartment lowered by a few degrees when the blonde started talking.

"This is a blatant violation of the current security measures." She hissed, "We now have a possible Templar with Assassin information. Do you have _any_ idea how this compromises our mission?"

"Woah, calm down! It's not like Dana told him every Assassin secret in existence- besides, you know as well as I do that she isn't allowed any access to them, as a minor field agent. Just the basic stuff, things Mercer would have known if he was a Templar agent just faking his amnesia."

"_Rebecca_, I would think _you_ of all people would understand the _importance_ of-"

"From what I understand, there's nothing we can do."

Desmond's calm voice broke through the chaos, granting Shaun the reprieve he needed to return to his studies. He took it gratefully.

The blonde turned to him and said, "Desmond, I don't expect you to understand, but secrecy is the tantamount to the success of every mission, and the information leak has put this whole assignment in jeopardy."

"Trust me, I do. I might not have the decades of experience you do, but don't forget- I grew up on the farm and I've lived through decades as two of the more infamous Assassins in recorded history." He paused. "So Mercer- Alex, whatever we're gonna call him- he knows things you don't want him to know. Now what? We can't erase the memories from his mind. We both know we can't kill him."

That shut Lucy up.

"Look, I'm probably going to regret asking this, but… what's the _bad_ news?" Shaun questioned.

"Dana and her brother had a bit of a tiff. Mercer's heading over to make contact with his ex-girlfriend, who, from the information I got just now, is a Templar."

Bugger.

* * *

**Author's note: It's been a while. In my defense, I had a lot of things on my plate. However, the next chapter is already ~1/2 done, so it should be up comparably faster. You might have noticed that the early chapters have changed- I've taken the liberty of revising them and adding parts, especially the prologue. If it still has a chapter title in the actual chapter, then it is not revised. Please read and review- though hopefully, you've already done the former. Seriously though- if not a comment on the current chapter, perhaps one of the earlier revised ones. **

**It's just that for this chapter, I've gotten one review for every fifty different viewers. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? If you didn't like this chapter, why? (Though yeah, there's a lot of information and not a lot of action). Is there anything you want to know about the fic? Shoot for it. **


	6. Chapter 5: Karen Parker

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **Karen didn't expect her ex-boyfriend to barge into her apartment three days after his death.

* * *

Alexander J. Mercer was dead, Karen knew. No one could survive getting hit by twelve bullets at point blank range. So when McMullen had told her that she should expect a visit from her ex-boyfriend, she had laughed in his face- which hadn't been the smartest thing to do, under the circumstances. She had thought the man had finally gone senile when he had promised her her freedom and some nice research opportunities far away from black-armored men with big guns, and all she had to do was convince Alex to surrender to Blackwatch _if_ he showed up. If he didn't, she still got everything she was offered.

She had agreed immediately. Hell, she was surrounded by trigger happy soldiers under the direct control of the man who had just ordered Alex's death. What did she have left to lose?

So when her apartment door had opened and a vaguely familiar voice had said her name, Karen had expected to see one of the numerous Blackwatch soldiers who monitored her apartment constantly. Instead, she saw an unfamiliar looking man in a black leather jacket. His face was shrouded in shadows, hidden by a grey hoodie.

Karen stared for a minute, mentally replacing the frankly thuggish clothing with a white lab coat. No, it couldn't be… But the man's intense blue eyes were unmistakable, even though they now glowed slightly with an inhumane light.

"Alex?" She asked incredulously, scrambling out of her seat. "I thought you were dead!"

He fixated her with an unnerving gaze. "I should be." Alex said finally.

Karen strode over to him and wrapped him in a hug. Sure, he might have gotten a bit insane near the end of their relationship, but she had missed him. He stiffened under her touch and even without looking at his face, she knew he had the uncomfortable, awkward expression that he got whenever he was touched. His body felt strangely warm, definitely more than human body temperature.

She let go awkwardly and took a step back, taking in Alex's unhealthy pallor and sunken-in eyes. He looked terrible, even more so than the times he had gotten sudden inspiration and barricaded himself in his lab, working for days without sleeping or eating.

Karen wasn't an idiot. Alex had told her, shortly before his 'death', that he had something that would guarantee himself safe passage out of the country. She also knew that he had been working on a new virus strain that could supposedly cure cancer. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Alex had taken with him to Penn Station.

It was obvious that the 'Blacklight' virus hadn't been as harmless as everyone thought. _Something_ had happened in Penn Station, or else Manhattan wouldn't have been put under lockdown. Alex was sick- Infected, using Blackwatch's term for it. But for some reason, he still retained his mind, nothing like the shambling Infected she saw outside, creatures that looked like they had lurched right out of a zombie movie.

"We need to get out of this military cordon." Alex said, breaking her out of her musings.

"You need to get us a vehicle," Karen decided, "A military one, if possible… That's the only way we're going to get out of the district."

She wasn't sure if she still agreed to McMullen's deal, now that Alex turned out to actually be alive. On one hand, Alex was just an ex-boyfriend, and she had been offered a way out of practically all of her troubles if she _did_ get him in McMullen's hands. If she could have a choice of picking which man to be angry at her, she would definitely pick the quiet, unassuming geneticist over the Gentek founder whose every order was obeyed by murderous gunmen.

On the other hand, McMullen definitely seemed like the kind of person who would stab her in the back as soon as he got what he wanted.

But either way, she needed to get away from this place. Karen could make her decision after she was no longer under twenty-four hour surveillance.

Idly, she wondered how the hell they were supposed to get out of here. Her guards had been given orders not to let her leave her apartment under any circumstances, and she was sure that letting her wander out of the district in a stolen tank went against those orders. Karen hadn't been allowed any visitors either, which brought up a very good question. How _exactly_ did Alex get past the guards? He wasn't exactly inconspicuous, dressed the way he was now.

Then Alex had casually opened her window and jumped out. Karen ran to the edge of her window in shock and looked down, fully expecting to see a bloody human pancake spread on the concrete. Instead, she was greeted by the mind breaking sight of a dark figure leaping away like a deranged kangaroo, making craters every time he landed on the already cracking street. _No wonder Blackwatch hadn't seen him_, _if he'd traveled by rooftop, _she thought numbly, _but how on Earth...?_

Or so she thought. Her phone rang, which was odd. Nobody had called her since the infection had started, five days ago. It was an unknown number, but she picked up, and regretted it immediately.

"Hello, Karen." Said the familiar slimy tones of her former boss, "I see you've gotten a visit from a mutual friend."

Instinctually, she stuck her head out the window, looking for the guard who had seen Alex sneak in. "Yes, I did." She gritted out finally, seeing no trace. "I suppose I should be expecting a visit from some of your people in the next five minutes? Should I get my affairs in order?"

"Oh, _no. _Nothing like that. Why would I get rid of such an important asset?"

"Because the deal's off, McMullen. I'm not helping you catch Alex."

The line went silent. Finally, he spoke. "Ah. I see now. You've always had a weak spot for Mercer, Karen. But would you still stick by that _thing_," McMullen spat the word disgustedly, "if I told you that 'he' isn't your dear boyfriend?"

"What are you _talking_ about?"

He sighed, and continued in the condescending tone that Karen had so hated back when she was still his subordinate. "Listen, Karen. Whatever he is now, he's not the man you knew. Hell, he's not even human. He's something else entirely. You said it yourself. A human being could not have survived what happened to him in Penn Station. He did, and came out changed."

Karen's hand trembled, but her voice did not waver. "How do I know you're not lying? Everything you said has been pure conjecture."

McMullen gave a nasty little laugh. "You answer me, Karen. After all, you've seen him face to face! All I've got have been surveillance footage and the accounts of my men. Do _you_ think he's human?"

Her only response was to hang up. It was a very childish response, but no matter how hard she tried, she didn't regret doing it. For deep down inside, Karen knew what McMullen was saying… was the truth. She'd _saw_ Alex jump out of her fifth story building and land with nary a scratch, had heard the distant human screaming that she'd hoped was only due to surprise. Alex still looked the same to her eyes, aside from his sudden appreciation of leather.

But Karen had looked into his eyes, and what she had seen in them made her want to cower. He had a predatory look that no human could have- it reminded her almost of the tigers and lions she had seen at the zoo. It was primal, it was dangerous, and she knew, for reasons she couldn't explain, that he was _hungry_.

* * *

Humanity has a peculiar ability- they won't believe what they don't want to. Anything that didn't conform to what they thought they knew of the world was pure imagination. Alex looked human, so he was. Karen Parker obstinately ignored everything that suggested otherwise- the peculiar heat emanating from his body was just an effect of his illness, the look in his eyes was just her imagination, and the tendrils that she had seen ghosting around parts of his body? Probably just her mind playing tricks on her.

It was for this reason that the majority of Manhattan's population remained unaware of just how bad the outbreak had gotten. Just the day before, four percent of the population had been infected. Now, it had risen to twelve percent. The inadvertent release of Elizabeth Greene from captivity by Alex Mercer had sped up the infection rate by unprecedented amounts. Redlight was less deadly than Blacklight, but it spread much faster with a greater 'survival' rate, leading to the appearance of many new Hunters and Infected.

But still, the people stayed oblivious, even when the key players of the Outbreak made no secret of their abilities. Great red hives that smelled of rotting flesh had appeared in the most heavily struck parts of the island. Alex Mercer didn't care if anyone witnessed his abilities and fought the Infected with reckless abandon, tossing civilians out of his way as he sped to his next destination.

But there was a line to this deliberate blindness, of course, and, judging by the current progress of the infection, that limit would soon be breached.

* * *

Alex Mercer landed on the red stained concrete with his knee bent, leaving a large crater in his wake. His arrival caught the attention of a nearby Hunter, who leaped at him with its claws outstretched. Alex grinned. He _was_ getting a bit famished, and the minds of the Infected were fractured and empty, perfect for guiltless dining.

He avoided the first swipe with ease and sent biomass to his forearms. Even though Alex had always wanted to fight fire with fire- that is, kill Hunters with his _own_ claws- his claws weren't very effective against the creatures' tough hides, and he was on a time limit. A single hit from his Hammerfist stunned the monster, and Alex used the distraction to hurl a nearby roadblock at its face.

It howled in pain and swung arbitrarily at its surroundings. Alex smirked, and, neatly avoiding the frenzied blows, punched it in the chest and sent it flying. It crashed into a nearby building and slumped down, completely defenseless.

Alex released his feeder tendrils, plunging them into the Hunter's body. It gave one last bellow as its body was agonizingly liquidated into pure biomass, which traveled back into Alex's body. He reabsorbed the tendrils, taking a brief moment to make sure all his parts were still in the same place, and jumped away, leaving only a large bloodstain in his wake.

He needed an APC to get Karen out of the cordon, but he had no idea where to find one. _But, _he thought to himself, spying an oblivious Blackwatch commander in the distance, _that could be easily fixed._

The commander had gone down easily, not noticing the Runner until it was too late. In fact, none of his subordinates had noticed either. Alex decided that stealth consuming was a very useful ability indeed. Acquiring the APC had been easy; he had put on the guise of Charles S. Munar, recently deceased Blackwatch Commander, and was let into the base without a second look.

That was when he realized that he had no idea _how_ to _drive_ a damn APC. Half an hour and one consumed APC driver later, he was casually driving through the streets of Manhattan in a tank. Unfortunately for him, driving wasn't something he could just learn the easy way. This, he found out after plowing through five taxis and two trees, leaving explosions and angry people in his wake.

People were screaming and running all around his APC now, and Alex frowned. Was his driving really that bad? Well, they sure weren't making it easy for him- it was as if they _wanted_ to get ran over, seeing how they kept running in front of his vehicle.

The APC did have really nice guns however, and it would be an absolute shame for him not to take advantage. _Karen can wait a few minutes_, he decided. Twenty minutes and a destroyed hive later, he finally arrived at the blonde's doorstep. In an uncharacteristically polite move, he knocked on the door.

It was only after she had opened her door and screamed that he realized that he was still in his Blackwatch Commander disguise. With a brief thought, Alex returned to his own form with a brief skittering of tendrils. But that only served to scare her more, for she now cowered away from him, face pale.

"Alex? Wait- you- how did you _do _that? You looked like someone else- like _Blackwatch_, and now you're back to normal- oh God-" Her eyes grew large and fearful. "What _were_ those black things that were crawling on your skin?"

Oh. Right. He really should have expected this, especially after what he now called the Dana Incident. "When I consume something, I gain their abilities and their physical appearance." Alex said succinctly, not really wanting to get into _that_ when they were surrounded by both Blackwatch and military.

"Consume- so when you _eat_ something, you can… shape-shift to look like it? But you looked like a _person_- oh. God. _God_." Karen turned vaguely green, which was probably not a good sign. He reached out to her with a hand, but she scrambled away.

"Look, I don't go after anyone who doesn't deserve it." Alex told her helpfully. "I'm not going to kill you."

…Which, judging from Karen's expression, wasn't reassuring at all. If only Dana was here… this conversation would probably have gone a lot better if his sister had been the one explaining things to Karen.

"We don't have time for this. I got the APC. Let's go, before Blackwatch regroups and comes after us."

For a second, Karen looked as if she would rather take the second option than ride in the APC with him. Fortunately, she nodded stiffly.

"I-I know a place," She stuttered, then repeated in a more firm tone, "I have a safe-house in East Harlem. Take me there, and I'll do whatever I can to… cure you- I have my own lab there."

Alex inclined his head slightly and walked away, Karen trailing after him. She stared at his back, but he never looked back. But if he did, he would have seen her looking at him with new determination.

* * *

The drive over to East Harlem was rather awkward for the ex-Gentek researcher, who shied away from her 'savior' whenever he got too close, now that she knew what he could do. She found that she couldn't call _him_ 'Alex' anymore- it felt wrong calling a murderous, human-eating viral monster by the name of her ex-boyfriend. There had been various times during their ride there when he had jumped out of the APC and brutally _butchered_ the soldiers who had tried to stop them.

He had told her that he only killed Blackwatch and military- those who had wronged him. But Karen knew that wouldn't last for long. She had seen his savage glee as he tossed a car at a nearby helicopter, sending it crashing into the ground in flames. She had seen him 'consume,' violently devouring a soldier until there was nothing left but a bloodstain on the ground. Karen knew that sooner or later, he wouldn't be so discriminate with his killing.

She was guilty, at least partly, in the creation of a monster. After all, she hadn't reported Alex immediately when he had told her about his plans. Maybe if she had, he wouldn't have set his creation free, and he _definitely _wouldn't have gotten eaten by his own virus. Karen could connect the dots; the creature being able to take on the appearance of others was just the final puzzle piece.

* * *

He left her in her safe-house, promising to return in a few hours to check up on her research.

There was one thing that Karen had to do. She took out her phone with trembling fingers and dialed back. As soon as she connected, she wasted no time in explanations. "You were right." Karen admitted. "I'll do whatever you need me to do. Just… keep me safe from that _thing._"

Even though she couldn't see McMullen's face, she could practically _hear_ his gloating smile in his voice. "I knew you would see logic.

When the creature returned three hours later, she turned away from her laptop and dutifully gave him the information McMullen had told her. "There are two genetic strains at work here. I'm going to need several samples of both in order to synthesize a cure. You can get the samples from the infected water towers and full-blown hives."

ZEUS- Karen had found that the military term for the creature fit much better than 'Alex'- nodded indifferently, but there was a light of what seemed like hope in his eyes.

"Whatever's happening here," He added as he made his way out, "This is only the beginning."

_Not if I can help it_, Karen thought to herself. She hadn't lied, not exactly. She _did_ need the strains to synthesize a cure to destroy Blacklight. It's just that in this case, _he_ was the virus.

When she was sure that ZEUS was out of hearing range, she took out a few papers from her drawers. They were crumpled and stained with various substances, but they looked official all the same. The foreboding 'TOP SECRET' and 'FOR TEMPLAR EYES ONLY' was faded but still easily readable.

Alex had been the one who had convinced her to join the Order, all those years ago. It had sounded like something out of a spy novel, at the time, a group dedicated to world peace, with members in every field there was. Karen had been so proud that she was being considered for admission- it was, after all, made of only the brightest minds of the generation. She had joined as soon as she found out that her boyfriend was already a member.

Neither of them had really cared about the Templar cause. Of course she had wanted world peace, but it hadn't exactly been the biggest thing on her mind. The Order had never seemed very real, to be honest. Sure, she saw evidence of their involvement every time a politician appeared on air with the familiar red cross, but they never really _did_ anything.

But now, they were on the move. The Templars were after the creature who had taken on the face of Alex Mercer- ZEUS, Blacklight, whatever he was called now. Karen Parker was under the protection of the Templar Order, and not even _he_ could get to her now.

* * *

Alex _hated_ being an errand boy. On one hand, he knew that Karen needed samples to conduct research, and _she_ could hardly be the one to retrieve them. On the other hand, it was boring as hell. But he would do it, even if he would rather take on Elizabeth Greene face to face than suffer through another minute of this. Well, maybe not _Greene_.

His world had been turned upside down in the days since the Outbreak began. Though he didn't remember more than brief snapshots of his life as a scientist, he, at least, was normal. Dr. Alexander J. Mercer had a girlfriend and a sister. Alex Mercer, on the hand, ate people and could transform parts of his body into deadly weapons. He still had a(n ex-)girlfriend and a sister, but they were both terrified of him.

He _needed_ the cure, and he had to be Karen's errand boy to get it, then fine. Alex hadn't thought an easy fix for his situation was possible, but here it was. He had hope, and suddenly the disaster wracked landscape of Manhattan seemed that much brighter.

* * *

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please read and review. I altered Karen's situation a bit from canon in an attempt to make her decision seem more understandable. **


	7. Chapter 6: Research and Chips

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **Rebecca's research bears fruit and the implications of those findings lead her to theorize as to the answer to a question that has been on her mind for quite a while.

Just what _is_ Project Blacklight?

+ Desmond Miles is given the unenviable task of forming some kind of rapport with a violent, amnesiac Templar- one infected with the same disease spreading like wildfire through the city.

* * *

Rebecca squinted at the glowing screen with bleary eyes and, almost unconsciously, took a sip of very watered down coffee from a cheap, cracked mug. Her precious supply of coffee beans, snuck past the airport security, was dwindling fast. She wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't stupid enough to prioritize coffee above survival.

She was stuck in the middle of a viral outbreak, one that she referred to as- while not entirely accurate- a zombie apocalypse. It certainly seemed like one at first glance. Their flesh warped from the effects of the devastating virus and their bodies animated by some distant hivemind, the Infected stumbled mindlessly through the red zone of the city. It was hard to believe that even they, at one point in their lives, had been human.

Rebecca shuddered inwardly. She had seen enough movies to know that going outside during such an event was a Very Bad Idea. While she was a pretty big fan of zombie movies, she knew better than to be excited about her predicament.

So far, the modern Assassins had avoided having to leave the apartment building they had claimed as their own. The former occupants were long gone, either dead or- hopefully- evacuated to one of the safer parts of the city. This was the red zone, the places of Manhattan Island most affected by the plague that had swept the cities.

She really, _really_ hoped that the rest of the island was in better condition. The virus might not be able to spread across the water that surrounded Manhattan, but it had more than enough fuel where it was now. 1.6 million people on this floating piece of land. Jesus _Christ_.

But, as evident from their dwindling supplies of food and water, they couldn't stay cooped up in here forever. Grocery stores had been left abandoned after the evacuation of the majority of the population and there was bound to be useful things in there. The problem was getting there. It was easy enough for Dana; her brother was more than happy to help her get the supplies she needed, and _he_ wasn't in any danger from the Infected. It was much more difficult for the modern Assassins.

Alex Mercer was much less willing to give them a hand than he was for his sister. It was understandable. They hadn't exactly made a great first impression on the guy, what with Lucy (and god, she loved her, but the woman just gets a bit trigger happy, you know?) pulling a knife on Dana. That coupled with the fact that the man was also infected by the same virus and- for some unknown reason- gained (creepy) superhuman powers instead of turning into a mindless Infected made relations between Mercer and the modern Assassins more than just a little frosty.

Speaking of the man… Rebecca frowned at the screen, forehead furrowing. Just what the hell was he involved with? His records still existed- thank god for _that_, at least- but they were suspiciously blank. Age, gender, position were all there, but the things she actually cared about were not.

Apparently, he used to be the head scientist of some project called Blacklight. Huh. Strange name for a laboratory experiment. But when she delved deeper into the files, she discovered that everything else about Blacklight was simply… _gone_. There were some cover information to keep up the disguise that everything was normal- according to that, the experiment was an attempt to cure cancer- but the other scientists who had worked on the project, the results, any definite information about the project… all deleted.

She bit her lip absentmindedly. Blacklight sounded a bit… familiar? She had seen something like it before, but Rebecca couldn't remember where. Maybe not the exact word, but something close to it that- it came up in a conversation she had with Dana earlier that day, when she had told her some of the additional information she had discovered about Elizabeth Greene. Dana had stayed oddly mum about the source of her information, which was strange. Rebecca had looked everywhere and had found nothing. But she didn't push. Hey, she was her best friend. Dana can keep her secrets if she wants to.

But Black_light_, huh? Either geneticists had some kind of organized key for naming projects after colored lights, or this project was connected in some way to Redlight. But how, exactly? The latter was a test of some virus in Hope, Idaho, which ended up killing thousands at an unprecedented rate and creating Elizabeth Greene. So that meant Blacklight…

Her eyes widened. Stupid, _stupid_! Could it be any more obvious? Blacklight, Redlight- both connected to a viral outbreak. Now _this_ was a lead. Dr. Mercer was the head scientist on an experiment on a virus that was somehow connected to the Redlight virus of Hope. Hell, from what she knew know, the Blacklight Project was probably working on the Blacklight virus- or, as the public knew it, the Mercer virus.

Even though Dana had vouched for her brother's 'innocence'- if he had really released that virus like Blackwatch said, he wouldn't have became amnesiac and infected- Rebecca realized then that the 'Mercer virus' was pretty aptly named, though for different reasons than most would think.

It was named after the man who had created it, after all.

Rebecca grinned. This was great. She had been working tirelessly the whole day before finally getting through Gentek's security and firewalls a few hours before. An actual breakthrough!

Then, slowly, the grin slid off her face. Dr. Mercer was head scientist of Gentek's- or rather, Abstergo's- prize project, Blacklight. Even ignoring that the man had created a lethal, humanity-destroying virus, the implications did not bode well for Mercer's 'innocence'- at least, Dana's hopes that her brother wasn't actually a Templar was growing slimmer by the minute.

There was no way in hell that the Templars would put a regular Joe Schmo in charge of something _that_ important to them, even if Mercer was a complete genius. That, added to the fact that he was, even if he hadn't been the one to unleash the Blacklight virus, partially responsible for the current viral outbreak…

Dana was not going to like this. At all.

* * *

Sometimes, Desmond Miles just hated his life.

He had wished, as a kid, that he had been born into a normal family- one with a doting mother and a loving father, one that lived in a house with a picket fence. Instead, he got a complete asshole of a father and a caring but distant mother, and instead of a house with a picket fence, he got to live in some completely isolated community of surprising athletic conspiracy theorists.

Desmond escaped from there as soon as he got the opportunity to and spent a few happy years living a normal life. He made friends with people, became a bartender (and a damned good one, if he could say so himself), and hell, even bought a motorcycle.

That motorcycle had been his downfall. That was how they found him.

His past came back to haunt him when he was kidnapped by the Templars- the same ones he had been warned about his entire childhood and forced to relive memories of his past ancestors because of his one-of-a-kind ancestry. Apparently, his family and distant ancestors had all been Assassins.

Then he had escaped, only to live through even _more_ memories, now from a different Assassin, in order to save the world from the Templar's assimilation plan. A few months later, Desmond found out that the world was actually ending for _real_- at least, if he didn't find some way to stop it.

Yeah, no pressure.

He had thought Manhattan would be a cakewalk compared to the days (hours) he spent avoiding guards and assassinating targets in Renaissance Italy. Hell, it was a city, right? And this was modern times, not like the Black Plague back in the whenevers- he thought it was going to be a distraction from his actual problems.

But now, Desmond had to survive in the middle of a viral outbreak that transformed its victims into misshapen monsters right out of a horror movie. To make things even worse, their only allies on the island were the Assassin they had come to rescue… and her murderous, over-protective older brother.

Said older brother was also an amnesiac and already infected with the virus sweeping the city. But in Alex Mercer's case, getting infected granted him super strength and the ability to turn his hands into claws instead of a slow and painful death. According to what little Rebecca had told him- she wanted to talk with Dana first, she said- the man was also a Templar.

Which… didn't bode well for Desmond and his fellow Assassins, especially considering how the guy already wanted to kill them. They've been avoiding Mercer since they got to Manhattan, using Dana as a intermediate instead. At least the man cared about his sister, if nothing else.

Mercer was something out of a comic book- heck, he would make a pretty good superhero if not for his unpleasant disposition (understatement) and his violent tendencies. Desmond hadn't seen much of him other than that first meeting, but he knew the man had superhuman strength and speed and- an ability that he actually felt kinda jealous of- was able to survive incredibly high falls. It reminded him of the Leaps of Faith he had gotten used to (and never got to use in the present, considering the lack of haystacks in urban cities) during his time in the Animus.

But the same abilities also made him a complete wildcard. The Assassins couldn't really _do_ anything to him; Desmond doubted a regular gun or blade could kill him- maybe hurt him, but not permanently. But as they say, the enemy of one's enemy is one's friend, and Mercer was definitely Gentek/Blackwatch/Abstergo/the Templar's enemy. That made him an ally... sort of. But ally or not, he wasn't exactly someone Desmond felt comfortable drinking with- or hell, even talking to.

So when Lucy told him seriously that he needed to form some kind of friendship with the guy (okay, maybe not in _those_ words), he hadn't reacted well. Seriously? _Seriously?_ Did they think he was suicidal?

"Please tell me you're kidding me." He said, "Lucy, you're telling me to befriend Alex fucking Mercer?"

"Stop overreacting." The blonde told him exasperatedly. "I'm not telling you to be his best friend- or his friend at all. Just form some kind of rapport with him. We need information and to be honest, I think his sister is keeping something important from us. We know nothing about Mercer except that he's lost his memory, gained powers though the virus, and that he used to be a Templar sympathizer. We need more than that."

"And you expect _me_ to get that information for you? _Me_?" Desmond gestured at himself wildly. "Look, I'm not some trained interrogator- I'm a regular guy. Hell, I'm just a bartender from New York!"

"That's exactly why we need you."

He stared at her blankly. "...Because I'm a bartender?"

"In a way, yes." Lucy sighed, looking very tired. Her bruise had lost some color, but it still contrasted sharply with the paleness of the rest of her face. "You've talked to many customers during your time as a bartender, surely. Maybe even made friends with some of the regulars. You know how to interact with complete strangers and get them to spill their life stories."

"Wha-" He managed, "That's a complete stereotype!"

"Stereotype or not, you're the best person for the job out of the four of us. Rebecca doesn't have the time to do this. Besides, she has issues with the guy from when she knew him before. Shaun..." Lucy grimaced. "He'd probably get pushed out of a window in the first few seconds of them talking. And you know why I'm not a good choice." She smiled ruefully. "I don't want to die just yet."

"Hey, I don't want to die either." He added, albeit a bit halfheartedly.

"He's not going to kill you." She told him, "His sister wouldn't approve."

Yeah, sure. That made him feel a whole lot better. His survival depended on how much a violent, murderous Templar cared about his sister- which according to Rebecca, wasn't all that much. Desmond just hoped that Rebecca was wrong.

"So, um. What the hell am I supposed to do? Just go up to him as he's dicing up a horde of Infected and ask him how he's doing?" He raised an eyebrow.

Lucy shrugged. "Hell if I know. Just do your male bonding thing. If you can get to Shaun, you can get to anyone."

His mouth dropped open. "Male bonding? You want me to go up to the guy and- and ask him if he wants to go for a drink? Go demolish skyscrapers together? We don't really have any... shared activities or ambitions, you know."

"I don't know. The two of you both seem to enjoy jumping off tall buildings." She deadpanned. "Look, don't worry about it. Just... _try_. If he ignores you, well, we don't get the information. Not a huge loss, considering we don't have any in the first place."

Desmond sighed. He... was really going to regret this. "I'll do it," He said grudgingly, "But if I end up as a smear on the concrete, I swear I'm coming back from the grave and haunting all of you."

* * *

He ran through the empty street, vaulting over empty cars and barricades, a flimsy plastic bag hanging from one hand. If anyone had been there to see him, they would have stared and- maybe- taken a phone video. No human could run that fast, just as no human could leap over the barbed wire with the ease he just had. But there were nobody left, all evacuated or dead.

The only ones left in the Red Zone were monsters and idiots. Alex Mercer considered himself the former.

A soaring leap brought him a few dozen feet away from the tall apartment building where his sister resided. He stopped momentarily. Should he actually use the (miraculously still working) elevator inside, spend a few torturous minutes in a tight enclosed space, but make Dana happy? Or, he could just go his usual way and get a book thrown at him.

Screw it. It wasn't like getting hit by a book will do anything more than annoy him. Not having the freedom to move for any amount of time, on the other hand...

Alex jogged toward the building at a blinding speed, got to the side of the building, and kept running. His foot stomped onto the side of the apartment wall and, before gravity could take its toll, his other foot was already on the next step. The windows rattled as he climbed, sending loose bricks and dirt falling to the ground below- a ground that was getting more and more distant as he made his way up, fifty feet, a hundred feet, a hundred fifty...

There. He grabbed onto the window sill and, with his free hand, shoved the windows open. Alex scrambled up and in, catching a glimpse of the familiar room he 'shared' with his sister before something splashed onto him, drenching his head and upper body. The bucket clattered to the ground and rolled away. The cool liquid covered his face and filled his open mouth, making him splutter.

The hell was this? It looked like water, but it gave him a uncomfortable, tingling sensation on every part of his body it had touched- even, for some odd reason, his clothing. It was like those parts of him were getting taken apart on a minuscule scale.

"I warned you that I thought of something better!" Dana crowed, stepping out from inside the bathroom. "I felt you coming up here minutes ago, so I got my bucket and- Just how hard it is to come up here the regular way? It's not like elevators are going to kill you, I'm not even asking you to go up the stairs."

He didn't reply, too busy shaking the liquid off his body. She faltered, and asked with slight worry, "Hey, are you alright? The bucket didn't hit you on the head or anything, did it? I mean, I don't know if you can even get hurt by that, but... Wow, you look like a drenched cat."

"Phbbt," said the Monster of Manhattan. He grabbed Dana's jacket that was hanging from her chair and, ignoring her shout of indignation, wiped his face with it. "What the hell _was_ that?" He managed, finally getting all the liquid out of his mouth.

"That?" She asked, confused. "It's just the old bucket of water over the door trick."

Water? But that had felt nothing like what water was supposed to feel like, at least according to the hundreds of years of other people's memories he had gained over the past few days. Thinking about it, he hadn't actually _touched_ water- or rather, didn't remember doing so from his own memories.

"Why did you ask? What, was there something else in there?" Dana asked, looking concerned. "I just refilled it from the sink. Is the water supply contaminated? Oh fuck, I'm sorry, I just wanted-"

"No, it was just regular water." Alex decided with a grimace. Damn. Guess water was something he should avoid from now on. The amount of water he came into contact didn't do much other than making him feel incredibly uncomfortable, but he knew that would be different if he jumped into the ocean or something like that.

"Alright, that's a relief. Hey, do you want to change or something? It's just that you've been wearing that same leather jacket and jeans combo ever since the outbreak happened, and _that_ was days ago. I'm not saying that you smell, but I don't know, it's just a little strange. Besides, your clothing is wet already-" Her eyes widened. "Oh _shit_."

He stared as Dana ran over to the bag of goods he had dropped during his initial freak-out and, after some rummaging through its contents, breathed a sigh of relief.

She grabbed a can of processed, artificially shaped slices of starchy root vegetables (sprinkled, to Alex's confusion, with pieces of crystalline mineral) and after a brief struggle with the plastic cap, shoved a piece in her mouth, crunching energetically. Dana interpreted his stare wrongly and held a piece out to him.

"Hey, you want one? It's really good. Good thing they didn't get soggy. Or stale." She said excitedly, "I don't know where you found these, but I didn't even know there were any left in this city!"

"No." He grimaced.

"You know, Alex?" Dana told him through a mouth of potato mush, "I think I have a good idea."

He raised an eyebrow. Dana's 'good ideas' usually turned out to be everything but.

"You should actually try eating normal food! I know that, um, you eat other... things, but maybe you can ease yourself into eating something different. Like allergy shots." She held out the can of potato crisps. "A potato chip isn't going to kill you. Just one. Please?"

Alex relented, reaching into the can gingerly and retrieving a single paper thin slice of root vegetable. He stared at it, holding it precariously between two grease tipped fingers, mentally willing his feeder tendrils to consume the... 'potato chip'.

"Well?" Dana asked, staring at him expectantly. "Are you going to stare at it or eat it?"

He looked at her blankly. Oh, right. Alex had seen her eat before, shoveling the oily bits of starch and plant material into her open mouth. Though he himself had never tried consuming _that_ way... cautiously, haltingly, he placed the chip in his mouth and 'swallowed'- that is, drew the chip somewhere into his shoulder area. It felt uncomfortable, digging slightly into the surrounding biomass.

Alex stared at Dana in silence, determinedly ignoring the urge to expel the foreign substance from his body.

"Um," She said finally, after a few moments of awkward silence, "Did you just... swallow that whole?"

"...Yes?" He replied, slightly confused. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do? "Something wrong with that?"

"No, um, it's just. People usually chew their food before they swallow them. But that's okay!" His sister grinned. "So how did it taste? You want another one?" She shook the can in front of his face. "You used to like them when we were kids. I'm not sure about now, but..."

"It... I don't think I should try another one." Her face fell, and Alex tried his best not to feel guilty. "Look, I'm sure it's good under normal circumstances, but I don't think processed goods work out well for me right now. Besides," He added, in an attempt to cheer her up. "We have a lot to worry about right now. Let's leave this whole... food thing until after we get rid of Greene and the infection, alright? I promise, after we're off this island, I'll eat all the potato chips you want me to."

It worked. She smiled brightly and jokingly said, "I'll hold you to it. You're stuck here with me for the time being, but no running off as soon as you get the chance, alright?" The again was unspoken, but obvious to both parties. "Deal?"

"...Deal." Alex said awkwardly. If his whole deal with Karen went the way it was supposed to, then he should be completely normal by the time Dana decided to make good on his promise. Speaking of his ex-girlfriend- and it was still so strange to think of her as one, for unlike Dana, he couldn't bring himself to feel any attachment or affection for her- the blonde had told him that she was getting close. All she needed was a few more samples and he would be normal again.

"I need to go." He told Dana, "Karen needs some more genetic samples. I'll... I'll come back soon, alright?"

"...Right, Karen." A strange emotion flickered over his sister's face. "Yeah, go ahead. It's important, more than- more than just hanging around here." Her eyes widened. "Hey, I forgot to tell you something. One of the Assassins asked if he could accompany you out to the city. Said he needed to get an understanding of the current situation."

Alex grimaced. "Dana..."

"Yeah, I know, I know. But you don't have to be his babysitter. Apparently, Desmond can take care of himself. Maybe just slow down... a tiny bit?"

"...Desmond?" His eyebrows furrowed. There had been two males among the group of 'Assassins'.

"He's the one wearing the white hoodie. Pretty distinctive, especially with that scar over his lip. Can't miss him." Dana told him. "You two can be the hoodie duo! One white, one gray, they fight the infection from day to-"

"Dana."

"Alright, sorry, I just thought it was funny. But seriously, don't worry about it, 'kay? From what I know, Desmond's actually some badass master Assassin with insane parkour skills. He's handy with a knife." Seeing the doubtful expression on his face, she continued, "Fine, yeah, I know he doesn't really look like it. Apparently, he used to work in New York as a bartender a few years back. But I trust my sources."

Being handy with a knife won't do much to the Infected. A five foot long blade, on the other hand... But seeing the look on Dana's face, Alex relented. "_Fine_. But if he gets infected or killed, don't hold me accountable for it. Staying alive is his problem." At least the Assassin wasn't that blonde bitch. He scowled at the thought.

"Sure thing." Dana grinned. "Hey, wait, before you go, lemme get you something. They were gathering dust in my closet anyways- they seemed pretty cool, and they were on sale, so I just got them. But I guess these would be useful now."

He looked at the circular black plastic pieces dubiously. "What are they?"

"They're two way communicators! I figured that this way, I can always contact you if shit happens- even if you're on the other side of the island. You see, I tweaked these a bit- usually the range is much smaller. But what can I say? I'm good with technology." She picked one up and placed it over her ear. "See? This is how you wear it. You won't even notice it."

"...Right. Thanks." Alex put the other one on carefully, feeling strangely awkward when he did so. "Thanks."

He made his way to the window and, after pushing the windows open, leapt out into the Manhattan evening. He landed with a thud, forming a large crater on the ground and sending an empty car flying. The car alarm went off, blaring loudly into the night.

Alex's enhanced senses picked up a sound from far up the apartment building. It sounded vaguely like, "Goddammit, Alex!". He ignored it.

He took off running into the night- but before doing so, almost as an afterthought, took off the communicator Dana had given him and put it in his pocket. It sank into the biomass, essentially muffling all sounds that might go through. If anything came _through_ it, on the other hand, he could feel the vibrations. But in all honesty, he did _not_ want Dana to hear the sounds he heard on a daily basis- be it the dying gasps of Blackwatch soldiers or the sickening screams of civilians being torn apart by the hulking Infected.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are my drug. Feed my addiction. **

**Question I want to ask. Should Karen Parker live? The plot can go either way right now.**


	8. Chapter 7: Canned Soup

**Rating: **K+

**Summary: **Desmond Miles, love guru.

* * *

Alex wasn't in a good mood. It was hardly surprising, seeing how he was stuck in the middle of a virus outbreak that the general public thought _he _released. It didn't help matters that he was infected with the same virus that turned everyone else into mindless, hulking monsters.

And if he didn't get a cure, he would join them soon enough. Which is why he had enlisted the help of Karen Parker, his supposed ex-fiancee, to synthesize a cure for the virus that ravaged the city. Alex was selfish, and he knew it. His motivation for getting the cure was to save himself first, and the city second. But seeing how the end results of both were the same, he didn't exactly lose sleep over it (if he slept in the first place).

Now, thanks to Dana's attempts to help, he had to make sure this... Desmond Miles didn't get himself killed in the city. Alex Mercer was many things, but a glorified babysitter wasn't one of them.

At least the man wasn't a complete idiot, like some other specimens of the human race. Namely, the ones who ran right into the path of his tanks, or got in the way of one of his attacks aimed at some less harmless enemy, or the ones who just stood there quietly when the Infected came after them...

Alex frowned. Humans were strange.

"Hey, how are things going with Pa - Karen?"

He paused, momentarily blindsided by the sheer randomness of the question. "What?"

"Karen Parker. Your girlfriend?"

"Ex," Alex responded automatically, "and she's..." He found himself at a loss for words. What _could _he say, really? "She's working on something that can help me."

"Help?"

"A cure. For this." He raised an arm and let, for a brief moment, his tendrils ghost across his fingers. Within seconds, his skin was back to its original, human state - although still unhealthily pale.

The other man winced. "Right. But I actually meant in a more... personal way?"

Alex stared at him blankly.

"You two are close, aren't you?" Miles asked.

"No." He didn't elaborate.

"Why - Oh, right. Amnesia." The other man peered at him. "Do you remember _anything _about her?"

"No." Alex wondered if Dana would blame him if Miles just happened to fall over the edge of a building. Probably. _Damn._

Miles whistled, "Wow, that must suck. But you two _were _close at some point, right? Only, its just her who remembers it."

Alex shrugged. Honestly, all he wanted was for Karen to synthesize a cure for him. He didn't exactly have the time to wonder about their past relationship.

"Come on," the man said, looking put out by Alex's nonchalance. "She - "

He really didn't want to hear much more from Miles. "I'll show you where I get my supplies," Alex said curtly. "But if you rather keep talking here..."

The Assassin looked abashed. "Right."

* * *

The place turned out to be a supermarket - or rather, it used to be. The smell inside was rotten - must have been affected by the blackout - and the overall atmosphere was uncomfortably dank.

Desmond wrinkled his nose. "Are you sure there's anything in here that's still edible?"

"Dry foods," said the man next to him. "There are... canned goods down that aisle." He pointed.

At least they wouldn't starve. He looked mournfully at the freezers that held dairy products and from which a foul smell emenated. Lucy would have enjoyed some yogurt. But there should still be coffee... Rebecca will be happy.

"Do you know if there are any of the... Infected hiding in here?" Desmond asked, peering into the darkness.

"There used to be," Mercer said. "I took care of them."

...Why was he not surprised? Desmond found that he didn't really want to know what "took care of" meant in this case. At least, he wouldn't have to worry about getting attacked by infectious zombies while getting food and supplies.

"Uh," he said in a desperate attempt to make at least _some _kind of conversation with Mercer, "any recommendations?"

Mercer stared at him blankly.

"You and Dana have been eating the food here for a while, right? Any tips on what's good and what's not? Don't eat the green wobbly bit?" Desmond added.

"...You'll have to ask Dana about that," Mercer said finally. And then, with some sort of difficulty, "I have never tried anything from... here before. I eat elsewhere." He paused. "The... potato chips are good?" It was more of a question than a statement.

"There's other places to get food around here?" He asked.

"No," Mercer said, looking vaguely uncomfortable. But again, he always looked that way, so Desmond wasn't sure how much _that _counted.

"...Uh, okay." Alright, the man can keep his secrets. Besides, it wasn't like Lucy would want to know if Mercer was off stuffing his face with his secret stache of goods.

There was a box next to his foot. He picked it up. On closer examination, it was in the shape of the heart - one of those boxes of chocolates people got on Valentine's Day. This was at least a few months old - it was summer now.

Great. A box of expired chocolates. That's going to help.

"It's a box of chocolates," Desmond explained, seeing Mercer eyeing the box with confusion. "It's just the box is in the shape of a heart."

"Hearts are _not _shaped like that," said Mercer.

Maybe the guy wasn't lying about being an amnesiac after all. Or, Desmond thought morbidly, maybe he found out for himself. "It's - It doesn't make sense, really, but everyone just accepts this shape as heart shaped. Even though it doesn't look like an actual heart."

Silence.

"That's just the way it is, alright?" Desmond defended against Mercer's strangely judgemental stare.

"Alright," the man deadpanned. "...What are you going to do with those?"

"I don't know. The time for these were months ago, and I doubt Lucy would appreciate these." He eyed them appraisingly. Hm. Maybe if he found some yogurt... but again, the odds of finding yogurt in this area that was not spoiled probably have odds of next to nil. And then, a horrible, _brilliant_ idea occured to him. "...Hey, why don't you take them?"

Mercer gave him a Look. Somehow, he managed to convey an entire thought through one raised eyebrow_. _Desmond wasn't exactly sure _what _it was - he wasn't the master of body language, okay? - but judging from the context, it wasn't a very pleasant one.

"Not for _you_," he clarified, "for Parker. Karen. Your ex-girlfriend who you remember nothing about?"

"...Why?"

"Er..." Riiiight, amnesia. "Well, these are usually given on Valentine's Day for the giver to show -"

"- affection to the receiver," Mercer finished, in an oddly monotone voice - almost as if he was reading out loud from a book. "Yeah, I know. But why should I give it to Karen?"

Desmond blinked. Okay, the man knew more than he thought. "You said that she's been pretty distant, right? I know some chocolate isn't going to make much of a difference but... I don't know. It's the thought that counts? Just let her know that you... care?"

Mercer's expression let him know exactly what he thought of the whole situation.

"You don't have to," he added, "it's just a thought." Okay, so maybe he was digging himself into a hole here. Desmond swallowed.

"...Fine," said Mercer. Then, almost hesitantly, "Do you have any more... advice?"

Was Alex fucking _Mercer_ asking _him_ for romantic help? Desmond stared, momentarily speechless. _I have _no_ idea what I'm doing, _he wanted to protest. All he had ever experienced had been one night stands during his stint as a bartender. Shit. Hopefully, Mercer wouldn't kill him over crappy advice. The only thoughts that came up were of basic rules of human decency, and the stuff _he_ did to stop Lucy from getting worked up - which had become much more common, now that they were in Manhattan. She almost seemed like an entirely different person sometimes.

"Uh. Tell her that you appreciate her?" Desmond started uncertainly, and, slightly emboldened by Mercer's hesitant nod, plunged on. For the first time in his life, he wished he actually read some of Lucy's secret Cosmo magazines. "Get her things she likes!" Alright, fine, he read _some _of them. The Assassin Hideout didn't exactly have a lot of reading material and he was _bored_. "Communication is key...?"

"I don't actually want a relationship with her," Mercer cut in, sounding annoyed. "I just want her to stop acting strangely around me." He fell silent, as if he had hit some mental limit for words spoken at a time.

Well then. At least he was honest...? But this was also an opportunity to gain some information. "Do you know why she's acting weird?" Desmond asked, trying his best not to sound suspicious.

Mercer gave him an odd look, opened his mouth to answer - only for the window to explode into a shower of glass shards. Desmond ducked his head instinctively, shielding his face with his arms. Crap. Though his vision was impaired by the darkness of the building and, well, his arms covering his face, he could hear sounds, noises that could have come straight out of a B-horror movie.

"_Fuck_," he heard, then, "Miles, if you want to get out of here alive, find somewhere to hide and don't come out until I call you."

Oh, shit. "_Fuck_ no!" He shouted back, "What are these -" Mercer was already gone. Right. From what Desmond could tell, they were being attacked by Infected - lots of them, from what he heard. He doubted that one or two of the ravenous monsters could be as loud as the sounds he heard. There wasn't much he could do. He didn't want to get close enough to the zombie - like creatures to kill them - close combat was what he was best at, being the Assassin he was.

Rebecca loved horror movies. As a result, Desmond had pretty much learned the rules to surviving in them. Alright, he wasn't an attractive young woman. That probably just raised his survival rate by twenty five percent. No barricades, he didn't have a gun... not that those were much use against zombies. What was that about zombies? Destroy the brain, right? What living creature could live without its head?

He needed a bat. Or a crowbar, or hell, a dictionary. Something he could use as a weapon.

Desmond could hear screams behind him. He just hoped none of those belonged to Mercer - or else, he was going to be even more fucked than he was previously. But the man could handle himself... he hoped.

He squinted into the darkness, cursing under his breathe. Who the fuck sells weapons in a supermarket? If only he could have gotten ambushed in a hardware store, or Home Depot, or _something_. What was he going to do, beat in something's head with a banana? Desmond slumped against the counter, cold metal digging into his back.

...Cold metal...? Wait, crap. Instead of something useful, he got processed soup cans. They were heavy, at least. The Assassin picked one up, contemplating it wryly.

_Grnk_. Desmond froze - then, slowly, very slowly, turned around.

It was pretty far away, thank God, but still not as far away as he would have liked. He could barely make out its form among the darkness, a dark shape hulking toward him slowly. Zombies were slow - at least, that was what Desmond had garnered from past experiences. He let out a sigh of relief. Maybe if he just stood here, it would pass him by.

It was a second later that he remembered that making any sort of sound probably wasn't the best idea under the circumstances. The Infected craned its head toward him - even from this distance, he could see the glimmering yellow of its eyes - and made a noise, a growl affected by several days worth of decay. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

_The movies fucking _lied, Desmond thought dumbly. The Infected moved just as fast, if not faster than a regular human. Then, _why the _fuck_ am I think about that now? _He didn't survive Abstergo to be eaten in a supermarket.

So, he ran.

That, at least, was one thing he was good at. In his past time in the Animus, in both the lives of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze, he had spent a lot of time running, mostly from armed, angry guards. He had bound from roof to roof of Renaissance Italy, scaled the towers of Jerusalem, and had made so many death defying jumps that it seemed almost second nature to him.

This was _nothing_. Desmond leaped past the fallen shelves, careful not to slip on the various puddles of unidentifiable liquids, trying his utmost best not to let his pursuer catch up to him. Either Mercer had let one slip away, or the man had already fallen victim to the horde. He really, _really_ hoped it was the former.

But really, he was human, but his pursuer was decidedly not. Which, unfortunately, meant that the Infected wasn't going to slow down any time soon, unlike the guards he had encountered in the Animus.

It was close now; its footsteps were actually audible now. It was his imagination - at least, he _hoped_ it was - but he almost thought he could feel its rank breathe on the back of his neck. He couldn't go that much farther, and Mercer was nowhere in sight. The Infected was only half a dozen feet behind him now, he saw, but won't be for much longer.

Desmond stopped, gasped for breathe, and turned back to look at the Infected again. It was almost in front of him, seeming almost confused as to why its prey had halted.

He looked down at the canned soup he still held in his hand, and grinned. "Heads up," Desmond shouted, right before he smashed the can into the Infected's face.

That wasn't going to kill it - not even close. It served, at most, as a momentary distraction - which was just what he needed. With a practiced motion, Desmond's hidden blade flicked into life at his wrist. It was well crafted and frankly, a beauty. Pity that he was going to have to use it in such a crude way.

He slammed the weapon into the Infected's neck, slicing through the dead tissue like butter, and twisted. But unlike the humans Desmond had used the technique on before, the Infected was still moving, uncaring of the fact that its head was hanging from roughly half of its neck. So he stabbed down again, internally wincing at the damage he was probably causing to his blade. It was made to stab and slit, not to decapitate.

He was careful not to let any of the resulting blood and gore get onto his bare skin. Desmond was suddenly glad that he wore such obscuring clothing. He had even worn gloves that day, at Lucy's strange insistence. Looks like she was right. As usual.

The Infected had stopped twitching. Desmond must have severed enough of its spinal cord that what remained of its brain could no longer send signals to the rest of the body. But still, one couldn't be too careful. He backed away slightly -

- only to see the Infected's head be reduced into unidentifiable gore by a very familiar foot. Desmond looked up.

"Good job," said Alex Mercer. "You're not dead."

* * *

Alex Mercer's first thought when he noticed that one Infected was missing was, _Dana's going to kill me_. There was one other in this building that might have been its target. Unfortunately for Alex, that someone was also Dana's friend, meaning, someone she would mind dead.

It had taken him only minutes to tear through the Infected horde - of which he devoured none, in a rare case of forethought - but that was all the time needed for an Infected to maul a defenseless human like Desmond Miles.

He was fully expecting to find a bloody corpse. What he didn't expect, however, was said defenseless human plunging a knife into the Infected's neck. Twice. No, multiple times, from what he was seeing. Miles wasn't stopping anytime soon, that was for sure.

He might have spent a few seconds staring. But it _was_ an unusual sight, especially considering how most of the violence he had saw went the other way around. After days of seeing people screaming and running from the Infected, it was oddly satisfying to see one fighting back.

Miles stopped, seeming to have finally gained an awareness of what he was doing. The so-called Assassin (a title which might actually have some merit, judging from the dark look Alex saw in his eyes) backed away from the corpse, eyes dazed.

Now was his time to intervene. He didn't know if the Infected was playing dead, didn't know if it had enough intelligence of its own to even _try_ such a tactic, but it didn't hurt to be sure. It wasn't coming back without a head and, after it had been stepped on with all the weight of Alex's compressed biomass, it didn't.

"Good job," he said, examining Miles' rapidly paling face, "you're not dead." It was actually a rather genuine compliment. He didn't know any other civilian who could take down an Infected. _Especially_, he thought as he looked at Miles through Infected vision and seeing no sign of infection, _one smart enough not to get infected in the process_.

The man stared back at him. "Where the hell were you?" He asked finally.

"Taking care of the other dozen of them," he replied lazily. And then, inspired by Dana's constant advice to 'cheer up' and the endless information contained in his head, he said, "They must have been a baker's dozen."

Miles didn't laugh. "That wasn't funny," he said.

Alex shrugged. At least he had made the attempt. "You got everything you wanted?"

"Aw, crap. I forgot about that when I got chased by a fucking zombie." Miles looked at him shrewdly. "Hey, just asking, for next time... how the hell do I kill these things? This really isn't easy."

In all honesty, Alex barely thought about that kind of information, seeing how he could make weapons practically geared toward killing Infected out of his body. But Miles didn't have that advantage. "The Infected are controlled by a hivemind. Destroy the brain." He personally liked ripping them into pieces, but he doubted the other man had the same inclination.

"...Guess I should get my hand on a baseball bat, or something." Miles groaned. "I need to pick some things up, and let's get out of here. I don't think I ever want to come back here. Might as well take care of everything now." And then, after a moment of thought, "Let's go find a roof or something. I don't want to stay here longer than I have to."

* * *

_"Shit."_

It was only from the top of a several story high building that Desmond Miles could truly see the devastation the Blacklight virus had wrought upon the city. Sure, he was surrounded by evidence of disaster on the ground - abandoned buildings, cars, worrying cracks on the foundation of skyscrapers - but he had convinced himself that it must have just been a localized situation.

But it wasn't; he could see that now. Manhattan was a city of lights - there was at least a few dozen lights on at every hour and minute of the day, be it from employee cubicles, or police cars, or just some night owl who hadn't felt the urge to sleep. But an entire half of the island was completely dark - a blackout of some sort, Desmond decided - and the other half was dim. The sides of some buildings were discolored, probably by some of the viral growths Mercer had spoken of before.

Speaking of Mercer, where the hell was the guy?

The Assassin backed away from the edge of the building. He had no fear of heights - any inhibitions had been worn away by experiencing decades of the lives of Master Assassins - but he had no urge to reenact a Leap of Faith from a ten story building. Not even a haystack could save him if he slipped.

He squinted into the darkness. No sign of the elusive Alex Mercer. He activated Eagle Vision with a thought - if his adventures in the Animus was causing him to go crazy, he should at least reap the benefits, right? - but still, no dice.

There was something strange about the guy, even more than his apparent infection with the Blacklight virus and his general... oddness. For one, Eagle Vision seemed to glitch up whenever Mercer appeared. Before, people would show up as allies or enemies or targets, but Mercer was... well, it was like he was all of them, and none of them at the same time. Desmond didn't know what that meant exactly, but he was sure that was nothing good.

But hey, he promised to give the guy a chance, right? Other than the whole freak out the man had in their first meeting, Mercer didn't actually do anything that counted against him - discounting his Templar background (which could mean anything, really. Wasn't Lucy supposed to be a Templar too?) and personality. Desmond was sure that if someone had held a knife to Lucy's throat, or Rebecca's, or (maybe) Shaun's, he would have gone batshit too. He couldn't blame the man for overreacting.

He peered glumly into the darkness. _Damn. _Desmond really wasn't looking forward to making his way back to HQ alone.

"Hey," said a voice behind him. _Right _behind him.

He froze and then, slowly, turned around.

Desmond was a full-grown man armed with decades of experience of being a professional killer. So, he was man enough to admit that he yelped like a little girl (it wasn't a _scream_, alright?). Come on, Alex Mercer isn't exactly someone normal people would want to come face to face on a dark night.

"Holy fuck! Where the hell did you _come _from?" He managed. It was a legitimate question, considering how the only way Mercer could have gotten to the place where he was standing was by sneaking right past Desmond with activated Eagle Vision (which wasn't an easy feat)... or he had climbed up the ten stories he needed to get to the roof.

"Down there," said Mercer, and Desmond had the sinking feeling that he wasn't joking.

He took a deep breathe. "Jesus _Christ. _You... _climbed _your way up?"

"...No." The Assassin let out a sigh of relief. At least _something _still made sense in life. "I ran," Mercer finished, matter of factly. Desmond choked.

...Was it his imagination, or had Mercer's line-face expression actually turned upwards under his hood? Huh. Maybe it was a day for firsts.

But now he thought about it, Mercer's feat wasn't exactly unprecedented. Hadn't he leaped into his sister's apartment from the outside?

"Okay, then. Something right out of a sci-fi novel, but seeing how this whole virus outbreak seems like a plot taken out of a video game, I guess I shouldn't be surprised." Desmond pinched the bridge of his nose. "...Any chance that you could teach me how to do that?" Because crazy or not, being able to defy gravity would be a great skill for anyone in Desmond's situation.

"...No."

"Damn." He eyed the - older? younger? Mercer's hood made it hard to tell. But he _was _Dana's _older_ brother, after all - man. "Hey, um, do you think we should be heading back? Your sister's probably pissed, and I think Lucy will yell at me for trying to get myself killed if we're not back by the next hour or so."

Mercer made a vague sound of agreement.

* * *

"Hey, guys?" Desmond opened the door cautiously. "I'm back." A pause. "Where are you guys?"

"In here!" Rebecca shouted from her computer room, "we're all in here."

Rebecca's room was small, like everyone else's rooms. Size was even more limited by the electronics she had stacked everywhere in the room, including a small, make-shift Animus. Why was everyone huddled in there? Nevertheless, Desmond squeezed in, only to see the other Assassins crowded around Rebecca's laptop.

"Uh... What's going on?"

Lucy turned around. "We've been co - Desmond, what happened to your hoodie...?"

He swallowed. His white hoodie had been splattered by gore, something he didn't want to bring back to the apartment. Mercer had told him, sounding strangely certain, that he hadn't contracted the virus during his exploration. He didn't want to ask _how_ the man knew, but... "I threw it away," he explained, "it got stained pretty badly."

But, like usual, she saw right through him. "God, Desmond, did you get hurt?" Her eyes were panicked.

"Lucy, it's okay, I'm okay," he replied, hopefully soothingly. "There was a _bit_ of trouble out there, but I'm not infected and I'm not hurt."

"If you two lovebirds are done over there," Shaun added from where he was pressed up against the corner, "get back here so we can finally finish this. Talk somewhere else."

Desmond shot him a dirty look. Shaun didn't insult him as casually as he had in the time they had first met, but the other man had always seemed really protective of Lucy.

"Shut up, you guys. I know you don't want to stay in here longer than we have already," Rebecca said crossly. Her face, however, was alight with excitement as she typed rapidly on the keyboard.

"Alright, fine. Can someone just tell me what's going on?" Desmond demanded. Not even ten minutes, and the uncomfortable atmosphere of the room was already getting to him.

"It's the Brotherhood," Shaun started, "or whatever's bloody left of it -"

"Hush. I'm the computer person. I want to tell him." Rebecca butted in.

"Look, I really don't care _who_ tells me, I just want to be told."

"Jeez, calm down, Desmond. Okay." Rebecca grinned. "The Brotherhood's finally contacted us about the viral outbreak. They don't have any more information than we do, but they told us that they do know people who do. People with the same ideals as us, deep inside the organizations responsible for all this."

His eyes widened. "You're not saying..."

"The Assassins have spies inside Blackwatch and Gentek. Apparently, they were sent in years ago, but for some reason or another, they've lost contact. They might have been discovered already, or dead, or turned traitor - but still, we might have informants in those organizations who can tell us everything." Rebecca's eyes were practically glowing with excitement. "But the Brotherhood's found a way to contact them - at least, whoever's left. And they gave that information to _us_."

* * *

**A/N: Insanely long wait. I have no excuse, but I'm back. To make up for the wait, I'll probably be uploading the next chapter (which won't be _that_long) in the next week. I'm leaving for month long camp after the 13th, during which I might be able to write but probably won't have time to, so I want to get stuff out before you guys end up having to wait another month.**

**Proooobably a lot of OOCness in this chapter, due to me forgetting a lot about the characters. If there's any specific part that seems really off, please tell me.**


	9. Chapter 8: Time

**Rating: **K+

**Summary: **Karen realizes that things may not be as they seem, and makes a decision. The Assassins discuss.

* * *

In the days following the outbreak, Karen Parker had settled into a kind of a routine.

The day was too short to sleep in, not that she had a habit of doing so even before everything went to hell. Not that she got much sleep in the first place. Stress was getting to here. Karen was increasingly aware of how precarious her position really was, caught between the wills of one of the heads of an international world power and a murderous, inhuman creature wearing the dead skin of her ex-boyfriend. The only thing that the two had in common was their lack of morals. It scared Karen to realize just how easily either of them could end her life. She was a dead woman walking.

Almost every hour of the day, she was occupied. Not with the cure, no – even she knew how pointless ZEUS's goal was. It _was_ the virus. Nothing she could do could change that, no matter how badly the creature wished it.

Sometimes, she actually felt guilty about her role in keeping up its false hopes. It didn't know what it was – ZEUS was deluded enough to fool itself into thinking it was human, that it had always _been_ human. But those feelings were just as pointless. Karen knew its true nature, had known since it had broken her out of the military cordon, mowing through the soldiers with no regard whatsoever for human life. It was foolish to fool herself into thinking otherwise.

Instead, she analyzed the samples ZEUS had brought her, meticulously typed up the data, and sent it over to McMullen's best researchers. They were synthesizing something that could kill the virus – at least, that was what she was told. She didn't care what they were doing, as long as she could get out of this alive.

God, how _did_ she get caught up in this? In the middle of the quarantine zone, associating with monsters, both human and not… She hadn't talked to a real person for weeks. What _happened_?

The answer came to her almost immediately. _Alex_. Of course. It had always been Alex, from the day she had first met the young, soft – spoken genius all those years ago. He had seemed perfect then. He was brilliant and charming and frankly, he wasn't lacking in the looks department either.

He had understood her like no other man had. She _needed_ him, had followed him on his ventures, had joined the Templars to stay with him.

Then he had changed. No, maybe that wasn't the right word. Alex had always been that way. He just didn't see the point of keeping up the mask any longer.

He broke up with her. And then, hell broke loose. Alex had stolen a sample of his work from the lab and was on the run. Karen had called him tearfully, hoping to understand just what the _hell_ was going _on –_

-and he had brushed her off, and then he was _dead_, his corpse, riddled with bullets, lying in a morgue in Gentek property.

She had mourned. She had loved him – or rather, loved the person she thought he was. Cried, even.

And then, he had showed up at her door with complete amnesia and an entirely out of character wardrobe, and then it turned out it _wasn't_ Alex, it was his pet project that had consumed its creator and gained its own twisted existence.

There was a lot she didn't know about Alex Mercer, she found out from the files McMullen had sent her. Karen hadn't expected the drug–addict mom, hadn't know what to say about his early psychotherapist examinations, and god, she didn't even _know_ he had a sister. Dana, Dana Mercer. _God_. In all those years, he hadn't told her a single thing about himself, let alone that he had a _sister_.

What could she do, really? Karen's two choices were both monsters. She just chose the more human one of the two.

She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Karen," said a voice behind her. And then a bit hesitantly, "Are you alright?"

Speak of the devil. But again, she had experienced enough of ZEUS's appearances that she was somewhat accustomed to it coming out of nowhere.

"I –" Karen's mind finally comprehended what she just heard. She raised an eyebrow. "Did something happen?"

"Nothing happened," it said, looking somewhat confused. "Why?"

"You – That's not something you usually ask me." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. It was easy to forget just what she was talking to. Sometimes, it felt like she was having a regular conversation with Alex, just like old days.

"Oh." ZEUS tried again. "You look tired."

It was like it was _trying_ to act empathetic, to act human. She didn't know how to react, at first. "I… I just didn't get enough sleep last night, that's all." Karen shifted uncomfortably. "Why are you here? The cure isn't done yet, and you're earlier than usual."

ZEUS looked pained. "We need to talk."

Karen froze. Her hands shook slightly as she panicked internally. There was only one reason ZEUS would be so out of character toward her that she could think of, off the top of her head. It wasn't exactly one she was looking forward to explaining. The false kindness, the forced empathy... all in an attempt to get her to admit to her betrayal. She calmed herself, hoping that it didn't notice her momentarily freak-out. There was still a chance.

"About what?" She asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"About us," it said, somewhat awkwardly.

She could have laughed. _Them? _Here, she was worried about being torn to pieces in her makeshift safe house, and ZEUS wanted to talk with her about a relationship that didn't exist anymore. Alex was dead, and whatever feelings she had for him didn't carry on to his creation. "I understand," Karen said out loud, trying not to sound too relieved.

"You do?"

ZEUS wasn't much of a talker. "I know you don't remember me. It's fine," She said. "I _understand_."

It looked thrown off. "You've been acting strange around me," ZEUS said tentatively.

So her unease had been so obvious that even _it_ had noticed. That was something she would have to fix, for however long she was forced to interact with it. Her smile was forced. "I'm sorry. I know it's a cliche, but... it's not you, actually. It's me. I've gone through a lot in the past few days, been dealing with a lot of stress. It has nothing to do with you." That was such a load of lies that Karen was surprised her nose hadn't gotten even longer. It had everything to do with ZEUS, and what he was - or, put accurately, what he _wasn't_.

It had an unreadable look on his face. "Look," she added, hoping that saying so wouldn't get her killed, "I... _appreciate_ your concern, but I need to process the rest of your samples. I really think I'm close to a cure." She hoped that it would take the hint, and Karen wouldn't have to directly tell it to get out of her apartment.

ZEUS nodded, and made its way to the door. Karen let out a sigh of relief that she didn't know she was still holding in. Talking with a murderous, viral construct had that effect on her.

"Karen," it called from the door. She looked up. It hesitated, as if unsure of continuing. "I know I'm a monster." His inhuman blue eyes caught hers. "But I don't want to be."

And, before she could reply, he was gone, the door shut with a clang. It was only then that she realized that she had instinctively reached out with a hand. God, _Alex_.

...But he wasn't Alex. She knew that. She _knew_ that, so why was it still so hard to disassociate the two? ZEUS wasn't even a _he_ - ZEUS was a creature, a virus, a _monster_. Yet, deep inside, Karen knew that the labels were not quite accurate. After all, what kind of monster openly admitted to being one? Hell, what kind of monster wanted to change?

She didn't know the answer to those questions. Karen made her decision already. She wasn't going to change it because of ZEUS's offhand comment. She couldn't _afford _to - her position was bad enough _without_ second thoughts.

Karen had spent the majority of the days she had been interacting with ZEUS drilling it in her head that he - _it - _was _not_ who it reminded her of, that it _was _Blacklight out for its own survival, nothing more. She was sure it had worked. At least, until ZEUS had shattered her illusions with one simple statement.

And that was when she saw the chocolates.

She blinked once to make sure she wasn't imagining it. What the _hell_? A garishly red, heart shaped box of chocolates - a small one, with maybe four pieces inside. Judging from the shape, it was a left-over from Valentine's Day - three _months_ ago. But how the hell did they get here? Karen _knew_ they weren't here before - she wouldn't have missed _that_ - and the only person to come in here was -

Karen laughed. It wasn't a very pleasant laugh, half-crazed with hysteria. Really. _Really_. Just the thought of it brought her to tears. ZEUS, murderer, bioweapon, 'humanitarian', browsing through the aisles of a generic grocery store and walking out, completely straight faced, with the bright red heart box in its hands. And, just as abruptly as she began, she stopped, and slumped onto the table.

A monster wouldn't bring her chocolates, tacky heart shaped box or not. It would have been easier to dismiss if it _hadn't_ been - then she could tell herself that ZEUS was trying to bribe her to get her trust. But this _wasn't_ perfection. The box was dented and partially squished, and when she opened it, Karen could see that the chocolates had pretty much completely melted and had hardened in the shape of the holder. It wasn't some perfectly calculated attempt to get past her defenses, and that made it so much worse.

Her phone rang. Slowly, mechanically, she answered it. "Hello?"

"Karen." _McMullen._ She tensed. "We're done here. Initiate Phase 2. In two days, my men should be transporting you to somewhere more... _secure_."

Her heart dropped into her stomach. "Understood," she croaked. McMullen hanged up.

Karen didn't have a choice. She made her decision a long time ago. It was far, _far_ too late to turn back.

_Goodbye, Alex._

* * *

"I know it may not mean anything," Lucy pointed out, "but I've never heard anything about this, and I've been involved with the Brotherhood for my whole life. As far as I knew, I was the only spy in the Templar ranks at the time."

This was bad. Incredibly, devastatingly _bad_. If the Brotherhood had _other_ informants, then it was possible that they noticed something a bit off about Lucy Stillman, that she had been just a _little _too committed to the Templars.

"I got the feeling that the Brotherhood's been trying to forget they ever existed. I can read between the lines. _Something_ happened a year or so back, and it ended with communications cut on both sides." Rebecca wrinkled her nose. "Kinda a dickish thing to do. Bill pretty much left them high and dry, deep in Templar territory with no way back out. Sorry, Des."

"It's fine. I know all too well how much of an asshole he can be," he replied.

"I know you don't get along with your dad," Lucy said, "but Bill really isn't as bad as you make him out to be. I'm sure he had a reason for doing what he did. Everything he does is for the good of the Brotherhood." Just like how she had a reason for leaving Clay high and dry. She just hoped William Miles' reason was better than hers.

Desmond sighed. "Yeah. I know. But that doesn't stop him from being a dick."

"How about we leave your family problems for some other time," Shaun cut in, annoyed. "I personally don't care whether or not your dad really is a wanker, but this really isn't the time."

"Shaun's right," she added. "Rebecca, do you know who these people are? I might have met them during my time undercover."

"I don't. They've been using codenames when sending messages back and forth to the Brotherhood, and whoever knows their actual names doesn't want to talk. But I don't think you would have met them, Lucy. You were in Abstergo, they were in Blackwatch and Gentek. I don't think there were any collaborations between them in the time you were active..."

Lucy mentally let out a sigh of relief. But out loud, she said, "It's a pity. How are we supposed to find them then?"

Rebecca bit her lip. "Apparently, it's how they communicated with each other back then. It's some kind of software that, with the right password and verification, broadcasts an encrypted signal to all copies of itself. It's actually a lot more technical than that, but that's the gist of it. Think of it like some kind of... I don't know. High security chat box?"

"...The Brotherhood communicates with undercover agents with a _chat box_?" She raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, I don't know what I was expecting, but..."

"That was actually my exact reaction. But since this started a long time ago - I think a decade or more - so maybe they didn't have anything better. But it's still working. I checked."

"Did you actually get through to anyone?" Desmond asked. "You said it was a long time since anyone's used this."

"Er. No. But there's still time, I mean. I'm just broadcasting a signal and seeing who picks up, it just might be a while before anyone _does_." She bit her lip.

"We don't have that much time, Becca," Lucy reminded. "What's the percent of people Infected now? Forty?"

"More." Rebecca winced. "Yeah, I know. But if anyone _does_ pick up on our signal, it could be incredibly useful. Come on, these people were undercover for more than a decade. They have to know _something_ about Blacklight."

"Just don't get your hopes up, alright?" She replied. "There's a lot of things that could have happened in a year."

Rebecca nodded slowly. "Okay. But I've set it up to make a sound if someone _does, _you know, pick up on my signal."

"Look," Shaun said from where he was pressed uncomfortably against the makeshift Animus, "does _anyone_ else think it's a good idea to get out of here? It's hot as hell in here, and I know _I_ don't want to stay here any longer than I bloody have to."

"...I can't believe I'm doing this," said Desmond, "but I think I agree with Shaun. We should talk outside, at least."

There was only one couch in the Assassin's makeshift apartment. It was threadbare, color faded by age, but insanely comfortable. Somehow, it managed to fit all four of the Assassins - but just barely. Shaun had to sit on the armrest and support himself by grabbing on to the back of the couch, and Lucy was practically falling off. Rebecca sat in the middle, having insisted in setting up her computer on the small table right in front of the couch.

"Desmond, how did you manage to lose your hoodie?" Lucy asked, shifting up a little.

"Er. It's a long story." Desmond grinned. "I kinda got attacked by an Infected. I won, though."

Shaun choked. "Well, I bloody _guessed_ that, since you're _alive_. You were on a surveillance mission. How the hell did you cock _that_ up?"

"Dammit, Shaun. It's not my fault that a bunch of Infected thought Mercer and I were easy prey."

"...Mercer? How did _that_ turn out?"

"He ended up killing most of them. I didn't see it, since I was too busy running for my _life_." Desmond said, somewhat cross.

Rebecca looked strangely excited. "Oh my god. Des, you killed a zombie?"

"Uh, I guess. Close enough."

"_How_?" Lucy supposed it wasn't surprising that the only things that got Becca this excited were technology and zombies. "You don't have a gun, um, did you find a baseball bat? Or did you cut its head off, like that one guy in -"

"Pretty much. Look, all I had was my hidden blade and a soup can."

"You," Lucy looked aghast. "You used your _hidden blade_?" It just felt wrong thinking of the ancient, graceful weapon of the Assassins being used in such a crude fashion. "You cut off its head with your hidden blade? And a _soup can_?"

"It was actually easier than I thought..." Desmond said thoughtfully. "It was half-rotted already. And I used the soup can as a distraction. How would you even cut off someone's head with a soup can?"

"...I don't know, Desmond." She sighed. "So, it really is like in the movies? Destroy the brain, remove the head?"

"Pretty much. Mercer told me that they were controlled by a hivemind, or something like that. If you cut off its connection, then its pretty much gone."

Hivemind. That itself implied some things the Lucy didn't want to think about. What controlled the hivemind? The Infected were mostly brainless creatures, working on pure hunger and instructions from their controllers. _Something_ was intelligent enough to coordinate the outbreak, someone closely associated with the virus itself. Greene, perhaps?

"Desmond," she said slowly, slight unsure of how to phrase the question. "Did you get bitten anywhere? Scratched?" His lack of a hoodie was worrying. "What happened to your hoodie, anyways?"

"Wha - No!" He stared. "If I got Infected, I wouldn't be stupid enough to come _back_. No bites, no scratches, and yeah, I was a bit worried that the virus was transmitted by touch or something, but Mercer confirmed with me that I wasn't Infected. That's one of his powers, I guess. Takes one to know one."_  
_

"Learn anything else?" Shaun drawled from his corner.

"Well, Mercer isn't very close with Parker. At least, that's what he says - I think he's telling the truth, but I'm not as paranoid as some other people. He told me that all he wants from her is a cure."

"A cure," the blonde echoed thoughtfully. "So that's why. But considering the powers that Mercer gains from his infection, it's a bit surprising that he's so keen to get rid of it."

"Hey, I know if _I_ got some kind of zombie virus, I would want it gone." Desmond defended. "Superpowers or not."

"...Same here," Lucy agreed. "But I know plenty of people in the world who would sacrifice anything for that kind of power."

"Not anyone sane."

"Exactly. Which is why I'm surprised about Mercer."

"Sorry Desmond, but I have to agree with Lucy. The two of us have known him a lot longer than you have," Rebecca cut in. "He's always been a bit weird."

"Look, guys, he might be a bit anti-social and... violent, but I don't think he's crazy. And honestly, if I was in his situation, I'd be going a bit insane myself."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Desmond. You survived Abstergo with your sanity intact. That's more than all those people before you could say." Lucy sighed. "Fine, Mercer's not crazy. Though, why are you defending him? You've known him for a much shorter time than we have, and you haven't ta -" She paused. "This is about today, isn't it."

"...I guess you can say that. Nothing really _happened_, I just talked to him for a bit. He's not as bad as I thought." Desmond sighed. "He's just as caught up in this as the rest of us. Hell, he might be a bit worse off. Mercer has no idea what's going on, no matter what he may have done before - _yes_, I know you think he's faking, but there's no way he's _that_ good of a liar."

"You might be surprised..." She muttered. "Alright, fine. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt." Lucy smirked. "This is a bit ironic. I seem to remember someone more than a bit scared of him yesterday..."

Desmond shoved her with his shoulder playfully. "Okay, fine, I kinda was. But he really wasn't as bad as I thought. Seriously."

* * *

A man in his profession had little use for computers. He wasn't technologically illiterate by any means, but it wasn't just a part of his daily life. He didn't have much opportunity to use them, and he wasn't the type of person to waste time surfing inanely on the World Wide Web.

He did own a small laptop, however, collecting dust in some corner of his small, military-issued room. He thought of it as some kind of reminder of times gone by, and hadn't expected to ever open it back up.

He stood corrected. A signal, then. They've finally made contact back, after months of silence. Of course, they were a little bit _late_. The Brotherhood had ignored them when they had needed them, and now when _they_ needed _him_...

There was no doubt what this was about. What else _could_ it be about? No doubt the Brotherhood was interested in how Manhattan had become the hell it was now. Typical.

Though, the Brotherhood had turned their back on him first. Though communications had officially ended last year, he had made his decision a long time ago. It wasn't a hard choice. On one side, he had his men - loyal to a fault and willing to, as their motto said, burn their own to hold the red line. On the other, he had the Brotherhood, which his early loyalty had belonged to, yet incredibly distant. The Templars weren't even in consideration.

But that didn't mean that his views hadn't changed.

He regarded the screen thoughtfully. "To hell with it," he said, and typed in his security code, as fresh in his mind as it was ten years ago.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews are loved. Speculations on plot? Issues with characterization? General feelings about the story?**


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